Yuval Levin says that the nation needs a new vision, and we don’t have a lot of time to come up with it.
[Update a few minutes later]
This explains the plight of the blacks (and to a lesser extent, some other minorities):
Human societies do not work by obeying orderly commands from central managers, however well meaning; they work through the erratic interplay of individual and, even more, of familial and communal decisions answering locally felt desires and needs. Designed to offer professional expert management, our bureaucratic institutions assume a society defined by its material needs and living more or less in stasis, and so they are often at a loss to contend with a people in constant motion and possessed of a seemingly infinite imagination for cultural and commercial innovation. The result is gross inefficiency — precisely the opposite of what the administrative state is intended to yield.
In our everyday experience, the bureaucratic state presents itself not as a benevolent provider and protector but as a corpulent behemoth — flabby, slow, and expressionless, unmoved by our concerns, demanding compliance with arcane and seemingly meaningless rules as it breathes musty air in our faces and sends us to the back of the line. Largely free of competition, most administrative agencies do not have to answer directly to public preferences, and so have developed in ways that make their own operations easier (or their own employees more contented) but that grow increasingly distant from the way we live.
Unresponsive ineptitude is not merely an annoyance. The sluggishness of the welfare state drains it of its moral force. The crushing weight of bureaucracy permits neither efficiency nor idealism. It thus robs us of a good part of the energy of democratic capitalism and encourages a corrosive cynicism that cannot help but undermine the moral aims of the social-democratic vision.
Worse yet, because the institutions of the welfare state are intended to be partial substitutes for traditional familial, social, religious, and cultural mediating institutions, their growth weakens the very structures that might balance our society’s restless quest for prosperity and novelty and might replenish our supply of idealism.
This is the second major failing of this vision of society — a kind of spiritual failing. Under the rules of the modern welfare state, we give up a portion of the capacity to provide for ourselves and in return are freed from a portion of the obligation to discipline ourselves. Increasing economic collectivism enables increasing moral individualism, both of which leave us with less responsibility, and therefore with less grounded and meaningful lives.
Moreover, because all citizens — not only the poor — become recipients of benefits, people in the middle class come to approach their government as claimants, not as self-governing citizens, and to approach the social safety net not as a great majority of givers eager to make sure that a small minority of recipients are spared from devastating poverty but as a mass of dependents demanding what they are owed. It is hard to imagine an ethic better suited to undermining the moral basis of a free society.
Meanwhile, because public programs can never truly take the place of traditional mediating institutions, the people who most depend upon the welfare state are relegated to a moral vacuum. Rather than strengthening social bonds, the rise of the welfare state has precipitated the collapse of family and community, especially among the poor.
Go to Detroit or my home town of Flint, Michigan, to see it in all its inglory.
Out of morbid curiosity, how would you slice this American Pie?
@Titus Quinn Says: Out of morbid curiosity, how would you slice this American Pie?
Peacefully and equitably.
Otherwise, I would not presume to “slice up” the U.S. of A. I am neither a politician nor a revolutionary and I have no plan for the dissolution of the United States.
That being said, I would guess — note, I say “guess” — that regional plebiscites might be a good way to start, these beginning at the lowest level of social organization (ZIP codes?) and progressing up to regions. The important thing is that arbitrary drawing of borders must be avoided; the critical thing in any dissolution is to allow the new borders to “draw themselves”, that is, to emerge organically based upon the demographic in each part of the country. To do otherwise is to create another “Yugoslavia”.
The final division would probably require some negotiated transfers of populations and property rights between states, these to be administered by some sort of treaty between the new ethnostates. The goal in general would be a sort of “America of Cantons”, similar to Switzerland in some respects. I would hope that these new states would enjoy a continued close relationship, as have the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Again: I’m not arguing for some political ideology here. I’m just pointing out the historical fact that multicultural nation states are not viable over the long term, and always end either by peaceful separation of cultures or by civil war. I’m in favor of peaceful separation.
“The important thing is that arbitrary drawing of borders must be avoided; the critical thing in any dissolution is to allow the new borders to “draw themselves”, that is, to emerge organically based upon the demographic in each part of the country.”
Historically arrived at via violence death and destruction.
“……and always end either by peaceful separation of cultures or by civil war. I’m in favor of peaceful separation.”
The litigants usually select civil war.
@Gregg: The litigants usually select civil war.
God forbid.
B Lewis-
You’re still stuck on this ethnicity thing I see. Why? Can’t you look around and see that different ethnicities get along just fine as long as they share a culture?
Some cultures largely correlate with ethnicity, but not necessarily. In American the African-American community has largely created its own culture and deliberately separated themselves out from everyone else. But every other ethnicity I see does a pretty good job of “fitting in” at all levels of society. Just looking around my office right now I see Cherokee, Indian (the sub-continent), Vietnemese, Italian, and Hispanic in addition to the North European mix-breeds like myself. And it works.
England is similarly successful at being multi-ethnic. Their Muslim population refuses to integrate (much like America’s blacks do), but everyone else mixes together pretty seemlessly.
It’s culture that matters. If America were ever to break up, I guarantee it would be on cultural faultlines, not ethnic ones. Texans would stick together, regardless of their ethnicity (and probably take all the Plains States up through the Dakota with them); the Puritan Northeast would build a nation around the dual poles of New York and Boston; California would probably split in half, but San Francisco would merge with Oregon and Washington; etc.
The only ethnic relocation program I would imagine ever happening in America would the voluntary relocation of blacks from their various urban ghettos to a “State of their own.” Perhaps Louisiana or South Carolina. And everyone else would flee that. And maybe that would be necessary for them to final accept responsibiilty for their circumstances and stop “blaming Whitey”.
Brock, I confess I’m tempted to either call you a bigot or just not even bother replying, but instead, I’ll try rational argument: to the extent your view of African Americans was ever true, it is now quickly becoming out of date.
I googled “what percent of black americans live in the suburbs” and got links such as this one, by advertising folks where I assume political bias takes a backseat to the bottom line:
http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/direct/e3i0bdeb9f8495547e186fb9f8d0316930f
” Franchese said most people are unaware that blacks are moving to the suburbs in such great numbers. “We tend to think of blacks living in the inner cities and nowhere else, but that’s no longer true,” he said. “
@Brock Says: [D]ifferent ethnicities get along just fine as long as they share a culture… Some cultures largely correlate with ethnicity, but not necessarily.
This represents my basic position. I apologize for phrasing my thoughts poorly.
***
@Bob-1: The reason black Americans are leaving the inner cities for the suburbs is that the failed “black American” culture has made the inner cities unlivable. If these fleeing black Americans bring the black American culture to the suburbs, the suburbs will become unlivable as well. Only by abandoning black American culture and adopting European-American cultural values (or Confucian culture, or some other functional culture) can black Americans hope to see any improvement in their lot.
And if saying so makes me a bigot, so be it. I refuse to deny reality simply because reality is distasteful.
From http://nhjournal.com/2011/03/17/census-more-blacks-in-south-moving-to-suburbs/
Among the new black suburbanites are Ray Taylor, 34, and his wife, Marcia, 33. Four years ago, they moved from Atlanta to the northern suburb of Alpharetta, Ga., about 20 miles away, seeking better schools and a wider range of community activities. They now have two small children, ages 4 and 1.
Taylor, a political independent who voted for Democrat Barack Obama in 2008, said he also liked having more exposure to people of different racial and political backgrounds. Compared with Atlanta, Alpharetta has a broader mix of whites and Hispanics and tends to lean more Republican.
“We wanted to be close enough to access the city and have the best of both worlds,” he said.
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B. Lewis, based on the above excerpt, do you think that Ray Taylor has rejected “black American culture”?
And nevermind the suburbs. Geoffrey Canada leads the Harlem Children’s Zone. You can read about it here: http://www.hcz.org/
President Obama has said that he’d like to see the HCZ model expanded nationwide (and thus ensued arguments over funding, but that’s another matter.) Do you think that Geoffrey Canada has rejected “black American culture”?
Bob-1: You are being deliberately naiive. You know very well that men like the Mr. Taylor in your article are by far the exception rather than the rule among American black people. You are simply pretending otherwise because facing the truth on this topic makes you feel like one of the evil, racist bad guys from a Hollywood movie.
Well, it makes me feel like one of the bad guys, too. But reality is reality, and as an adult one must face reality no matter how it makes one feel.
****
One middle-class black American speaks
The fun starts at 8:20, but watch the whole thing.
I’ll watch your video when I’m on AC power again.
In the meantime, what percent of Black Americans do you think live in the suburbs? The numbers may surprise you.
If you look at the history of New York, you’ll see wave after wave of European-Americans moving to the city, living in poverty, improving their lot in life, and moving to the suburbs. All the negative things you’re saying about black Americans were said about whites as well: the Irish, the Italians, the Jews, etc. It is true that African-Americans have had a different history in this country than European immigrants, but we’re now seeing the fruits of the civil rights movement as more and more wealthier African-Americans engage in “black flight” to the suburbs.
Ok, 10 seconds into the video, there is a reference to “the Zionist-dominated media”, and at 8:20, where “the fun starts”, you’ve got one nut (or a small group of nuts) being hateful.
You’re a racist, and I’m done. Feel free to have the last hate-filled word.
@Bob-1: Calling me a racist won’t change the facts. That tactic no longer frightens me.
“Brock, I confess I’m tempted to either call you a bigot or just not even bother replying, but instead, I’ll try rational argument: to the extent your view of African Americans was ever true, it is now quickly becoming out of date.”
Where someone chooses to live might tell you something abou their inner-culture, but not necessarily. Even someone with a dysfunctional worldview can still see lower crime rates and better schools and want to live there. Whether they also grasp the cultural qualities that make low-crime neighborhoods and good schools possible in the first place is another matter entirely.
“what percent of Black Americans do you think live in the suburbs?”
It doesn’t matter, if they bring ghetto culture with them. All that means is that the suburbs they move to will eventually fail as well, and the other (success-oriented) ethnicities will move elsewhere.
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I grew up in one of those “safe, good schools” neighborhoods, but less than a mile away it started getting ugly. And I had friends in those “bad” neighborhoods. I know what it’s like there, and why those places are the way they are. I haven’t seen anything to indicate significant change. Call me when any of the following happen —
1. The black single-mother rate starts declining.
2. Black popular culture starts recognizing the value of academic education and finishing school.
3. Bill Cosby (and the few blacks like him) doesn’t get shouted down as an Uncle Tom when he criticizes “thug culture.”
4. Blacks start deliberately integrating into the rest of society, instead of constantly building their own (and exclusive of others) universities, fraternities, “studies” programs, TV shows, clothing lines, etc. etc.
5. Basketball players show the professionalism of golf or baseball players, rather than behave like large spoiled children with aggression issues.
—
Do some individual blacks meet the above? Obviously. But most of the “dark skinned” success stories are actually more recent immigrants from Africa or the Carribean (or only half-black and raised by a success-oriented culture, like Obama or Tiger Woods). The Huxtables are a minority within a minority. The majority of blacks I know personally (even the ones who meet one or more of the above) are still deeply bought into the idea of black “otherness”. Just look at the 97% voting rate for Obama among Blacks,
@Brock: What you said.
But be careful. Bob-1 has deemed me a racist for saying more or less the same thing. He’s probably mentally fitting you for a robe and hood as well.