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As you may remember, I have in the past talked about three major philosophies that crop up often in politics: cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and materialism; or perhaps more simply, greed.

Well, it occurred to me today that it so happens that these philosophies are all represented by the major factions in Bethesda Softworks and Obsidian Entertainment‘s video game Fallout: New Vegas. I realize this may sound odd, but hear me out:

The New California Republic represents cosmopolitanism, or at least a Social-Democratic government that believes in modern-day values. They do to some extent impose Democracy by force, but nonetheless seem to hold more “enlightened” ideals.

Caesar’s Legion, meanwhile, represents Nationalism. They are a reactionary, semi-Fascist force that believes in primitive rituals, very traditional–even barbaric–social and gender ideas, brutal punishments, and a sort of Nietzschean romanticizing of power.

Finally, Mr. House represents wealth, greed and materialism. His reliance on science, technology, wealth, and mathematics (in the form of the gambling in the casinos) demonstrates this.

These aren’t all perfect fits, of course, and I have no idea if any of the writers consciously thought about any of these choices or not when they wrote the game. But it’s an interesting allegory, and I personally think it shows that more thought and care went into F:NV‘s storyline than goes into your typical video game plot, making it far more sophisticated than the typical “pure good vs. pure evil” archetype.

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I saw the Sun Bowl game on TV yesterday. It’s in El Paso, Texas and there was snow on the ground surrounding the stadium. I think they said it was 36 degrees Fahrenheit at game time.

Meanwhile, in Detroit, it was 52 degrees.

There are some people I know according to whose method of science these two facts would simultaneously prove and disprove the existence of global warming.

Some people have a hard time understanding that anecdotal evidence is not reliable. They also seem oddly incapable of understanding the difference between climate and weather.

I admit that I myself am pretty ignorant about climate science. My attitude towards it has always been like that put forth by Christopher Hitchens here:

“If it turned out to be that there was no severe global warming threat… then all we would have done would have been make a mistake in analysis, which we could correct for. But if it turned out that there was and we’d done nothing about it, than it would be too late to do anything at all.” 

This logic makes sense even if you, like me, have no idea if what the scientists are telling you is true or not. It’s a calculated risk.

Let me anticipate an objection that clever Republicans will venture. That is: what Hitchens proposes is nothing less than a modified, secular form of Pascal’s Wager. After all, the Republicans have long been repeating the line that the Climate Change people are nothing more than a new kind of Religious zealot.

This is a clever reply, but it is not a true one. Climate is an average of many readings of weather, and is therefore fairly easy to measure over time. This means that it is much easier to estimate the changing odds on Hitchens’ wager than on Pascal’s, where it is impossible.

I should mention that I wouldn’t expect this to actually work to change any Republican’s mind. The reason for this is that all methods required for dealing with the danger of Climate Change are anathema to both major sections of the Republican party.

First of all, there is what I call the “materialist” (or, if you like, “greedy”) wing of the party. This group is pretty well-exemplified by the Koch brothers, who are businessmen who realize that efforts at curbing climate change causing activities would hurt their profits.

Secondly, and perhaps less obviously, there is the fact that solving climate change would presumably require international co-operation. This is deeply objectionable to the Nationalist wing of the party.

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Rather unsurprising news:

“While 80 percent of Americans think that America “has a unique character that makes it the greatest country in the world,” more than a third say President Obama does not share that belief, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Dec. 10-12.”

It’s interesting to me that “American Exceptionalism” has lately become a Conservative catchphrase. As I’ve said many times on this blog, the reason for this is that American Exceptionalism is, in my opinion, a fancier word for Nationalism.

There are, admittedly, some attempts at non-Nationalistic definitions of American exceptionalism; such as this from Heritage Foundation:

“To really understand what sets America apart, we need to go beyond numbers to examine the heart and soul of the nation: the ideas of the Declaration of Independence. Unlike other nations that derive their meaning and purpose from some unifying quality—an ethnic character, a common religion, a shared history, an ancestral land—America is a country dedicated to to the universal ideas of equality and liberty. The truths we hold to be self-evident apply to all men—not just all Americans.” 

There seems to me to be something paradoxical about the idea that one country (and its citizens) are “special” precisely because they believe that all people, regardless of nationality, are to endowed with equal opportunity and liberty. All non-Nationalist interpretations of Exceptionalism suffer from similar flaws.

Now, it is probably true that when Alexis de Tocqueville first expressed this idea, it was more accurate and more pronounced. I think that America was probably more different from Europe in 1800s than it is today. America and Europe have since grown more alike and, despite what Conservatives will tell you, the change has not only been in the direction of us becoming more like them. They also became more like us, in some ways.

Ironically, because of America’s standing in the world, it is inevitable that other countries would seek to emulate it, thus eroding our “exceptionalism”. And because America’s good qualities are indeed “the ideas of the Declaration of Independence” and not “an ethnic character, a common religion, a shared history, an ancestral land”, it is relatively easy to emulate them. If you learn English and can find a copy of the Declaration Independence, you are all set to begin copying America’s unique qualities.

But this argument would be unlikely to persuade those who speak most loudly of American Exceptionalism, because they do not really think it is only these ideas which make us exceptional. For them, while it may not be “an ethnic character”, it really is a “common religion”–see the so-called “War on Christmas”, a “shared history”–ask the Texas school board–and “an ancestral land”–which is why Republicans are always celebrating hunters and farmers and “small town values.”

I’m not accusing the Conservatives of lying, exactly. They want to think that their policies and philosophies are grounded in the simple logic of the Founding Documents, instead of resorting to quasi-mystical beliefs in “ancestral land” and so forth. But the trouble is, because such beliefs are what really motivate them, and since they cannot say it outright–and probably are not even consciously aware of it–they must resort to other, flawed arguments.

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Andrew Sullivan makes a rather interesting point over at The Daily Dish:

“Mormonism is much more coherent a faith platform for the rightist religious popular front that the GOP increasingly is. Because it places Jesus in America and gives America a unique role in global salvation. Christianity – the actual religion, not its strip-mall bourgeois impostor – is universalist, not nationalist. What the far right means by American exceptionalism is a divinely blessed and guided country, whose enemies are God’s enemies, whose role in the bringing about of the End-Times is unique, and who therefore cannot truly do wrong.” [Italics his.]

Indeed. It reminds me of what P M Prescott said a few weeks ago:

“The Moral Mafia is claiming all of America as blessed by God so we can wage wars without guilt.” 

One question this raises in my mind:  Which, ultimately, is the driving force here? Are those whom Sullivan calls “Christianists” trying to create a Religious Nationalism, or are Nationalists just using the language of Christianity as a kind of veneer for their agenda?

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National Review has an interesting piece on the“American exceptionalism” issue. They argue:

“The liberal case begins by confusing exceptionalism for jingoism…. It is true that most Americans, and a disproportionate number of conservative Americans, consider this country to be the greatest nation in human history. But what believers in American exceptionalism affirm is a different proposition: that there are distinctive features of American society and governance — of our creed and our culture — that have contributed to our success. That view does not entail any obligation on the part of our leaders to believe in our country’s superiority to other nations, let alone to proclaim it constantly, as the liberal caricature of our view would have it.”

Pardon me, but that view seems to me to be a distinction without a difference. If, because our “creed and culture” are different we are more successful, then it is implied that we are better than other countries.
And if American exceptionalism does not mean we are better than other countries, then what is the point of constantly  worrying that Obama is ruining our exceptionalism? There’s no reason to complain that Obama wants to make us more like “social democracies”  of Europe unless you think that being more like the “social democracies” of Europe makes us worse off.
They are trying to get out of the “jingoism” charge, but in so doing they are effectively rendering their original complaint meaningless.

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While reading about the “American Exceptionalism: Does Obama believe in it?” debate, I came across this  interview with Jonah Goldberg, author of Liberal Fascism. 
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/assets/swf/CSPANPlayer.swf?pid=296418-1&start=2780&end=3058

First of all, Goldberg asserts that we as a country are patriotic, not nationalistic. I disagree. I believe every country has its patriots and nationalists. I have been for a long time using Orwell’s definition of the difference:

“Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation…” 

However, it would be unfair not to also take into account Goldberg’s definition from Liberal Fascism:

“Patriots revere ideas, institutions, and traditions of a particular country and its government. The watchwords for nationalists are ‘blood’, ‘soil’, ‘race’, ‘Volk‘, and so forth.” 

This definition, I think, makes it too easy to categorize Nationalists as simple racists. This fails to address  phenomena such as “Civic Nationalism” (sometimes called “Liberal Nationalism”) which is not a racist ideology. (To be fair to Goldberg, in the relevant passage he is mainly discussing Hitler, who was a racist as well as a Nationalist.)

But since the original question was “Is American Exceptionalism Fascist?”, then it is neccesary to figure out what “Fascism” really is. Goldberg calls it a “religion of the State”–meaning people worship the government, not any God. This is a weak definition, in my opinion, because even in Fascist Italy, the Church was not replaced; it merely allied with the Fascist government.

Broadly speaking, Fascism is a kind of Socialism for Nationalists. (It is no coincidence that people equate the “National Socialists” of Germany with Fascism.) Again, to quote from Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism:

“Socialism was predicated on the Marxist view that ‘workers’ as a class were more bound by common interests than any other criteria. Implicit in the slogan ‘Workers of the world, unite!’ was the idea that class was more important than race, nationality, religion, language, culture, or any other ‘opiate’ of the masses… What was then called socialism was really just a kind of socialism: International Socialism. Mussolini was interested in creating a new socialism, a socialism in one state, a national socialism…” 

The Nation, therefore, was the unit which the Socialistic policies were to benefit. Indeed, socialism is really just a kind of sacrificing of the individual to the whole (“the greater good”) and therefore is implicit in nationalism, militarism or indeed almost any kind of team effort.

Indeed, Mussolini was not alone in tying Socialist ideas to National tradition. In 1919, the German philosopher Oswald Spengler, sometimes called a “proto-Nazi”, wrote in Prussiandom and Socialism:

“We now face the task of liberating German socialism from Marx. I say German socialism, for there is no other. This, too, is one of the truths that no longer lie hidden. Perhaps no one has mentioned it before, but we Germans are socialists. The others cannot possibly be socialists…The spirit of Old Prussia and the socialist attitude, at present driven by brotherly hatred to combat each other, are in fact one and the same.”

Now, Goldberg believes that this idea of “American exceptionalism” makes us immune to fascism because what makes America exceptional is people’s general resistance to governmental authority. Therefore, Goldberg reasons, we could never be a “religion of the state” because Americans, unlike most people, are hostile to the state.

One problem with American exceptionalism seems, superficially, to be merely a matter of etiquette. It is one thing for a foreigner to say America is exceptional; quite another for an American to say it. At a high-level, it is the difference between someone telling you “You’re very intelligent” and you yourself saying you’re very intelligent. (Incidentally, it was Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman, who was the first to articulate the idea that America was exceptional.)

But the issue is deeper than simple manners. The real issue is that, if we suppose that America is an exceptional nation–or, perhaps more accurately, that the American people are an exceptional people–there is still the matter of how it came about. Is it earned or inherent? More specifically: are Americans supposed to be exceptional by virtue of the principles of our Constitution? Or is it a more mystical thing?

If we Americans are supposed to be exceptional purely because we are Americans, then there is a kind of mystical theory at work here–we are dealing in terms of the “People” and the “Soil” once again. (I must choose my words carefully here, else I shall have to order myself to quit comparing everyone to the Nazis.)

Goldberg is probably correct that Americans are more instinctively hostile to government than most. Yet, this is not always the case. After all, didn’t most people readily believe the government’s worst-case claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

Recall also, the fact that it was Europeans–the French and the Germans–who were most mocked for resisting the administration’s claims. It was un-American to oppose the war; it was French. (Remember “Freedom Fries”?)

I suspect, moreover, that the same people who believed that the Iraq invasion was justified on the grounds of WMD possession are currently the ones who are most distrustful of the government. And I suspect this is because they are Republicans, and therefore are inclined to believe a Republican administration and distrust a Democratic one. Call it a Leap of Faith, if you like.

Goldberg is not wrong when he says that American exceptionalism is not fascism. It is true that if we adhere to “American exceptionalism” purely as a sort of ultra-individualist/libertarian creed to always question authority, then that would be a good defense against an authoritarian regime or a too-powerful government.

The problem is, we can’t all be anti-government all the time. When Republicans are in power, Republicans generally are willing to go along with the expansion of government power, especially when it comes to National Defense. When Democrats are in, they are willing to go along with it to expand the welfare state.

 As I’ve said before, I’ve come to realize that when either Party is out of power, it uses the Libertarians to its advantage; then casts them aside when it retakes power. The Libertarians have seemingly failed to notice this thus far. And I think that Goldberg, who is more of a Libertarian than a straight-up Social Conservative/Nationalist, is willfully blind to this.

Ultimately, whether or not belief in American Exceptionalism is Nationalist (which is a more accurate word than “fascism”) depends on the reason one believes America to be exceptional. If one means only that America is unique among nations, that is not Nationalistic. (Of course, all nations are “unique” in some way. That’s why they’re nations.) Likewise, if one means something about the behavior of American people, anti-government or otherwise, than this also need not be nationalistic.

It is when we get to the mystical or super/preternatural reasons for American exceptionalism; what we might call “Inherent American Exceptionalism”, that it takes on the resemblance to a nationalist movement.

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Andrew Sullivan has an interesting article about Conservative intellectuals’ claim that Obama does not believe in American Exceptionalism, as allegedly demonstrated by this now-famous quote from him:

“I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” 

Sullivan believes this is merely a Conservative smear campaign. I am not so sure. I think it illustrates a fundamental philosophical difference between the Conservatives and Obama.

I’ve blogged about this issue a lot, and I guess the easiest way to sum it up is to say that Obama is a Patriot, but he is not a Nationalist. The Conservatives are Nationalists. As George Orwell wrote:

“By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.” 

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“The boys are all ready;
They’ve laid out the plan,
They’re setting the stage
For the man-made man.
We’ve worked out the kinks
In your DNA
So sayonara, kid
Have a nice day.”
—Warren Zevon and Larry Klein. “Sacrificial Lambs“. 2002.  

So, some researchers did a study and found out that there is a gene that predisposes people towards a “liberal” political stance. James Fowler, the lead researcher, said:

“The way openness is measured, it’s really about receptivity to different lifestyles, for example, or different norms or customs… we hypothesize that individuals with a genetic predisposition toward seeking out new experiences will tend to be more liberal.” 

This is kind of what I mean when I talk about Cosmopolitan thought vs. Nationalist thought. As I said here: “nationalism places far higher importance upon symbols and traditions than does… cosmopolitanism.” So, Liberalism, or what I call “Cosmopolitanism”, is much more willing to experiment with different customs, symbols and societal norms.

Interestingly, however, I am politically what people consider a “Liberal” on most issues, yet I don’t particularly enjoy “seeking out new experiences” in my personal life. I very much enjoy having a routine and sticking to it.

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George Monbiot writes in The Guardian:

“The Tea Party… is mostly composed of passionate, well-meaning people who think they are fighting elite power, unaware that they have been organised by the very interests they believe they are confronting.”

To which Alex Knepper responds:

“Ideologues don’t see opposing ideas as possessing any real legitimacy. Instead of honest disagreement, they see men behind the curtain deceiving helpless fools. Anyone who disagrees with them is manipulated, conned. Dissent from the beliefs of an ideologue, and he doesn’t treat you as an opponent worthy of sparring with. Instead, he condescends; he treats you like a helpless sap who’s been suckered into furthering the villainous motives of malicious sociopaths. The ideologue is the hero, motivated by kindness, while his enemies are bad guys who obstruct virtue and goodness.” 

This is much the same phenomenon I examined in this post, and after reading these articles, I think it’s worth examining a bit more in depth. First, Monbiot’s claim that the Tea Party people are simply being tricked is not quite right; they may not be aware precisely of who the Koch brothers are, but I am sure that they wouldn’t care if they did. Monbiot is indeed oversimplifying the situation to fit his ideology.

To this extent, Knepper’s rebuttal is correct, but where it falls short is in deciding to simply treat this discrepancy between the philosophy of the party’s backers and its members like it is completely unimportant. The Koch brothers really do spend money on these things–which is hardly surprising when you think about it. After all, someone has to pay to fund all these efforts.

Knepper appears to prefer  to simply conclude that, for some reason, the small-government ideals resonate with people nowadays; Tea Party has diverse viewpoints, etc. etc. etc., end of story. I would prefer to think of it in a rather different way.

There are three major groups here: the Nationalist Conservatives, the Materialistic Libertarians and the Cosmopolitan (the philosophy, not the magazine) Liberals. The Tea Party rank-and-file is mostly Conservative, but it is funded mostly by Libertarians. I don’t think this is a case of the one manipulating the other; rather, it is simply a strategic alliance. The Libertarians say to the Conservatives: we will help you get the Liberals out of office if you’ll help us with our small government initiatives. It’s a compromise.

And, as I’ve said before, this seems to me to make intuitive sense because it’s the exact same alliance that has defined the Republican party for almost fifty years.

That’s how I see it, anyway. As always, if you disagree with my analysis, I encourage you to speak up.

(Hat Tip to Andrew Sullivan)

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There’s an old story, probably apocryphal, that’s often told about Adlai Stevenson. Supposedly, at one of Stevenson’s campaign stops, a woman yelled to him “You have the vote of every thinking person!” To which, the story goes, Stevenson replied “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!“

It’s the sort of story that resonates with any one who has any interest whatsoever in politics, at least now that Stevenson is so far back in history that he has ceased to have any power to divide people politically. Everyone always feels like their side–right though it undoubtedly is–is also an oppressed minority, overwhelmed by hordes of uninformed imbeciles motivated only by the propaganda of shadowy elites.

This is the view that is held both by the members of the Tea Party and by most of the people who oppose them. And I suppose this is so because it is partially correct–and necessarily so, given the way politics works in this country.

The Tea-Party is, as I have said before, a re-branding of the Republican party to make it seem more fresh and exciting, but most of all to dissociate it from the unpopular George W. Bush and his administration.

Now, this does not mean the Tea Party is quite the same thing as the Republican Party; obviously, from day one they have sought to purge anyone who shows any signs of compromising with the Democrats from the party’s ranks. They appear to be insistent on ideological purity.

Many Democrats have tried to label the Tea Party as an “astroturf” (fake grass-roots) operation, citing Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks organization and the work of the Koch Brothers. And they are to some extent correct, though I suspect every large movement and every mass demonstration has some wealthy backers, if anyone cares to check.

But what does the Tea Party, as an organization, want? Most people who are sympathetic to them have said they are a sort of Libertarian movement, which claims to want smaller government. Those who oppose them say that they are racists. The Tea Partiers deny this, saying they only oppose “Big Government”.

Data about what the members of the Tea Party think about certain issues are at odds with the slogans they yell. As I noted earlier, a majority of Tea Partiers think free trade is bad for the country. This is not exactly a Libertarian position. Yet they continue to argue for capitalism, and despise governmental attempts at economic intervention.

So from all this we are to gather that they are clamoring for a free market, nothing more. Yet so often they are found not talking about this stuff at all, but about “restoring honor to the country” and “American exceptionalism” and “taking their country back”. They are always dressed in super-patriotic garb, always waving the flag and talking of the wisdom of the Founding Fathers. This is all complemented by a dose of fundamentalist Christianity–often with the implication that the Christian God blessed America specifically as the “greatest nation”.

This is, as I’ve said many times, nationalism. Not necessarily ethnic nationalism, as so many will infer. It may well be a completely non-racist, non-ethnically prejudiced nationalism, but nationalism it is nevertheless. The “Restoring Honor” rally held by the Tea Party’s much-beloved Glenn Beck was a cry for a return to National Greatness. The American exceptionalism talk means just what it says.

And the hatred of Obama? I think that much of it is not racially motivated. If you listen to the Tea Partiers, a chief complaint of theirs about Obama is that he supposedly “apologizes for America”. They want a President who will speak only of the greatness of America, a view which focuses solely on the positive things it has done. (At this point, they usually make some reference to the phrase “Shining City upon a Hill“.)

I believe Obama damned himself completely in the eyes of these Nationalists when he said, in response to being asked if he believed in American exceptionalism: “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” This type of subjective thinking is wholly, dare I say it, foreign to the religious nationalist’s worldview.

In his otherwise excellent article on the Tea Party, Matt Taibbi wrote:

“It’s a mistake to cast the Tea Party as anything like a unified, cohesive movement — which makes them easy prey for the very people they should be aiming their pitchforks at. A loose definition of the Tea Party might be millions of pissed-off white people sent chasing after Mexicans on Medicaid by the handful of banks and investment firms who advertise on Fox and CNBC.” 

The second sentence is accurate to an extent–though some would couch it differently–but the first part seems blind to the fact that virtually everything the Tea Party movement does is filled with symbols of Americanism and references to American history–not necessarily accurate history, of course, but some romanticized version of it. The underlying theme of it all is a longing for National Pride and National Greatness.

So, the rank-and-file Tea Partiers are nationalists. They want to protect American jobs through protectionist measures, punish illegal immigrants, deny any mistakes made by America through history, and above all restore “National Greatness”. This is the will of the majority of Tea Party participants.

But, it must be remembered, these are only the foot soldiers, not the generals. “Theirs not to reason why“, they simply are carrying out the strategy laid out by the other aspect of the Tea Party: the businessmen who finance the whole thing.

This is where the Libertarian strain comes from. The people who fund the Tea Party have no interest in “National Greatness” either for the United States or for any other nation. They just want to be able to make deals to do business with China, or to keep costs down by not having too many environmental standards to comply with at their factories.

This is not the sort of thing most people would get on board with–largely because, as often as not, capitalism works in opposition to nationalism. (For example: sending American jobs over to China? No American nationalist could ever sign off on that, even if an economist justified it with Ricardian comparative advantage.) 

Hence, the need to on the one hand spread the Capitalist system while on the other giving the Nationalistic streak in the party something to distract it from the details of how the system works. Much better that the Nationalists should be told the government that is regulating the capitalists is “anti-American” than to try to defend the decidedly non-nationalistic behaviors of capitalism itself.

The late Conservative political scientist Samuel P. Huntington wrote of the “Davos Man“. Named for the site of the World Economic Forum, Huntington said such people “have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the élite’s global operations”.

This is, of course, exactly the sort of thing that Glenn Beck and his followers are always talking about, hinting at dark conspiracies to destroy the American way of life by international socialism. And, I suppose there is a kind of truth to it; though it isn’t really a secret conspiracy. (If it were, we wouldn’t hear about it.) The point, though, is that there are also international capitalists who have just as little interest in national loyalty, but who are willing to exploit it for their own sake.

This conclusion is somewhat unsatisfying, mostly because, as I said at the beginning of this post, it is precisely the kind of thing that everyone concludes about the opposing side, no matter who they are. And furthermore, it is because this is the sort of thing that naturally arises in our system of politics. The same sort of dynamic exists in the Democratic Party; and I’m sure if one looked one could find contradictions between the intellectuals at the top and the working-class rank-and-file.

If one is sympathetic to the overall goals of a party, one calls it a “compromise”, and hails the miraculous union of these viewpoints. But if one is unsympathetic, it is a “contradiction”, and a bizarre cabal with one side pulling the others’ strings.

In any case, however, this is my conclusion as to the structure and philosophy of the Tea Party. Feel free to critique it.