Democrats and Communitarians (But What Kind?)

Tuesday is my heaviest teaching day of the week, and so I missed out on an exchange which bubbled through the blogosphere yesterday, and is continuing today. Of course, I miss a lot of exchanges, but given how central the larger political and moral argument between libertarians and communitarians is to my heart, I'm sorry I didn't see this one unfold in real time.

Greg Wythe has the best round-up of the exchange so far; Amy Sullivan points to a piece by David Gerstein which argues that Democrats have lost--boy, this sounds familiar--the ability and willingness to aspire to any kind of moral authority: to affirm, in other words, specific value judgments. Or, more specifically, as Gerstein puts it: "We don't hesitate to judge people's beliefs, but we blanch at judging their behavior. That leaves us silent on big moral issues at a time of great moral uncertainty, and leaves the impression that we are the party of 'anything goes.'" He's right, of course, and Amy is correct to praise him for it, as well as to link to the Noam Scheiber piece which praises "communitarian," value-judgment-making Democrats. Predictably (and let it be said that predictability is often a virtue), Matt Yglesias disagrees, primarily focusing on the "prudishness" which he sees lurking behind the whole argument, especially given that--from his point of view--there is no evidence to support the idea that our (I say) crass, sexualized, commercialized culture is actually hurting anyone. Ed Kilgore, partially defending himself against Matt's critique, insists that "identifying with the parenting struggles of middle-class voters," which progressives need to do with they are ever going to counter the Republican's culture war juggernaut, has at least as much, if not more, to do with the way in which these messages are conveyed by our culture than by the messages themselves:

"As a parent of a teenager, I am not that worried that the ever-present marketers will turn him into a sex-addict or a sociopath; I'm more worried that he will turn into a total greedhead whose idea of the good life is stuff, and whose idea of citizenship is to demand a better personal cost-benefit ratio on his tax dollars....In terms of macro, as opposed to micro, factors, Matt repeatedly says the social indicators show the kids are all right, except they are getting mighty fat. We could have a debate over those indicators, if he'd specify them; and I'm sure they would be great comfort to the parents whose children's cohorts haven't quite yet entered the data base. But more generally, there are...a variety of reputable studies indicating the kids may not be all right, at least when they are exposed redundantly to violent, sexual, misogyinist, and hyper-commercial images."

Ed is absolutely on the money here, but Matt's not it buying it. To the extent that all Ed and Amy and all us other "progressive prudes" are talking about is making the V-chip available to parents, and taking other actions to make it easier for parents to withstand certain elements of the cultural marketplace and thereby have the "space" to inculcate the values they think necessary into their children, Matt's all for it--but he doesn't think that's where the arguments which he's responding to will end. And he's right; they shouldn't end there, and this is something that Democrats who (I think rightly) choose to experiment with the "communitarian" label need to be willing to respond to. The end result of such experimentation is liberals and progressives who, like conservative Republicans today, are willing to make judgments so that, in Ed's words, "voters [can] figure out whether [progressive] politicians actually believe (a) there are principles more important than politics, and (b) there is such a thing as right and wrong." And this exactly what Matt, and liberals like him, don't want, because it goes entirely against what he sees the purpose of politics to be--namely, to limit society and provide resources so that people can exercise as much liberty as possible. From this perspective, the last thing you want is for any politician to take a definite cultural or moral stand, save in regard to the most universal and minimal of principles. Why? Because, says Matt, "[o]nce you abandon the principled position that it's not the appropriate role of a politician to be telling people what music they should be listening to, it becomes impossible to defend the existence of anything without endorsing it's point-of-view." And Matt, who--like so many of us--enjoys music and movies and art which includes content which in the real world many might well find highly distasteful, doesn't want to get into that fight. Do progressives, Matt asks, want to engage in a "values debates" with social or religious conservatives who find "pop cultural products which indicate that gay people are okay" to be distasteful? Of course they don't, he concludes. QED.

The best possible response I can make to Matt is one I wrote way back in November, when I was on my first (and, I suppose, continuing) "religion and the left" rampage:

"[T]he argument isn't that getting progressives in the Democratic party to recognize and incorporate as valid the moral concerns of America's religious voters means electing..."scolds-in-chief"....The argument, rather, is whether or not progressives are going to express a willingness to scold, or at least a sympathy for those who feel it necessary to do so. In other words, it's not whether or not the Democrats can realize that, say, abortion or violent video games or Sex in the City has got to go; it's whether they can realize that there are possible worlds into which such things ought not go, and that respecting the popular wishes of the people involves a recognition of the maintenance, or even the potential emergence, of such a world. What is at stake in the culture war, if you want to call it that, isn't the content of the culture so much as the context within which people may determine their cultural environment, and whether in the eyes of the state they will be legitimated or marginalized through doing so....Limits are useful things, and even if you prefer to reject the communitarian instantiation of any one set of (religious, national, cultural) limits, the act of limiting, drawing boundaries, and (yes) scolding transgressors of such, is essential to allowing a sense of affection for one's lived context to develop. If the power of the federal judiciary or the media undermines the legitimacy of such identity and context-establishment, then there will be hell to pay...and all progressive causes will suffer."

If Noam and Ed and Amy and others are going to (I hope, I pray) continue to push for liberals to acknowledge and take seriously the "communitarian" factor of progressive politics, then they're going to have to accept Matt's challenge, and ask themselves if they are willing to follow through on what the popular cultivation and affirmation of values (including religious and moral values) on the part of the government and politicians will entail. It will entail, very possibly, drawing lines and limits (if not necessarily, always, laws--but sometimes it will mean that too) in response the serious concerns of groups of people who feel bounded to certain principles, commandments, or ways of life. It won't do to simply be solicitous of various discrete aspects of our society's otherwise marginalized middle-class and working-class morality; it will mean allowing for the cultivation of a "worldview which makes certain [moral] perspectives and principles inherent to [one's] thinking about political matters." So you may end up condemning bad art, or even acting to limit the availability or production of bad art (at some times, in some places, in some ways), simply because it's bad. The fact that it may have been freely produced and freely consumed art is important, but secondary to the discussion when framed in this way.

I guess the real point is: are the Democrats to be encouraged to merely leaven their liberalism with some strategic communitarianism, or should they be encouraged to see populist, progressive politics as linked to communitarian priorities in some key ways? My preference for the latter is obvious; for others, that remains to be seen.