Commentary FEBRUARY 2019 : VOLUME 147 NUMBER 2 NUMBER 147 VOLUME : 2019 FEBRUARY February 2019 Cover.indd 1 Commentary

$5.95 US : $7.00 CANADA THE ATTACK ONLUCK DOES NOT EUROPE EUROPE BY JOSEF JOFFE EXIST BY NOAH ROTHMAN

ECONOMIC GROWTH

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS

IN DEFENSEOF TERRY TEACHOUT FEBRUARY 2019

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SeptemberNovemberFebruary 2019 2018 Cover.indd Cover.indd 2 42 10/15/181/16/198/14/18 1:491:44 1:32 PM PM Columns.indd 1 2/16/18 12:41 PM SAVE THE DATE The 10TH Annual COMMENTARY ROAST OF BEN SHAPIRO will take place on Monday, September 16, 2019, New York City

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JanuaryColumns.indd 2019 Cover.indd 1 2 12/14/181/16/19 1:38 1:51 PM PM February 2019 Vol. 147 : No. 2

Articles

Josef Europe Does Not Exist 14 Joffe Fabulous riches, half a billion people, and the world’s second-largest economy do not a superpower make.

Noah The Attack on Luck 19 Rothman How social-justice theory aims to control everything, including that which cannot be controlled.

James The Case for Growth 24 Pethokoukis Why the right’s attack is wrong.

Charles The Bertie Factor 28 Sykes An affecting series of novels features an unlikely champion of maleness.

Politics & Ideas

John The Glow-Worm 32 Steele Gordon Churchill, by Andrew Roberts

Joshua Intellectual Lives Matter 34 Muravchik Paving the Way for Reagan, by Laurence Jurdem

Harvey Too Many Communists in the Kitchen 36 Klehr Making History Making Blintzes, by Mickey Flacks and Dick Flacks

Columns.indd 2 1/16/19 1:38 PM

Politics & Ideas

Roberta Saving the Leaky Vessels 39 Rosenthal Kwall The New American Judaism, by Jack Wertheimer

Alexandra Won’t You Be 40 Hudson My Neighbor? Alienated America, by Timothy P. Carney

Culture & Civilization

Terry Etude, Brute? 42 Teachout The case for Chopin.

Jonathan V. Sohrab, So Good 45 Last From Fire, by Water, by Sohrab Ahmari

Monthly Commentaries

Reader Commentary Washington Commentary 4 Letters Andrew Ferguson 10 on the December issue You Must Take Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Seriously Social Commentary 8 Christine Rosen Jewish Commentary The Psychological War Meir Y. Soloveichik 12 on Masculinity Alone in the Cosmos

Media Commentary Matthew Continetti 48 Milestone Myopia and the Newsy Anti-Semite

Columns.indd 3 1/16/19 1:38 PM READER COMMENTARY Trump and the Jews

To the Editor: former governor of Hawaii, Linda supremacist leader, greeted the N his article, (“The Know-Noth- Lingle, a Jew, and Trump’s silence victory with a “Hail Trump.” Iing Excommunicators,” Decem- on the matter; Trump’s appoint- Berl Falbaum ber), Seth Mandel writes: “From ments of Steve Bannon and Se- West Bloomfield, Michigan the pens and pulpits of the Ameri- bastian Gorka and their ties to can Jewish left come the writs anti-Semites; Trump’s stating that 1 of cherem for those with unaccept- the “both sides” in Charlottesville able political opinions.” Later in included some “very fine people”; Seth Mandel writes: the article he adds, regarding the and his use of Charles Lindbergh’s APPRECIATE Berl Falbaum’s criticism of Donald Trump, that the “America First” slogan. Iletter, and I share much of his Jewish left wants “to settle political Nor does Mr. Mandel men- concern about President Trump’s scores.” tion that anti-Semitic incidents handling of anti-Semitism. But his This principle, on which the arti- increased 50 percent in 2017, the vitriol is misplaced. cle is based, is entirely false. Indeed, first full year of Trump’s adminis- My essay was not about put- it is shameful. The criticism comes tration. Jonathan Weisman, in his ting Donald Trump in cherem. The not because of politics but emanates book (((Semitism))) Being Jewish question was whether “Trump’s from anti-Semitism, racism, hate, in the Age of Trump, states that Jewish enablers,” as one writer put lies, corruption, etc. Trump ran the most anti-Semitic it, should be cast out. That descrip- Mr. Mandel does not mention campaign in modern American his- tor has been principally applied the anti-Semitic caricature of Hill- tory. Mr. Mandel? The word “anti- to three categories of “enabler”: a ary Clinton that Trump distrib- Semitism” appears exactly once in Jew who works for the Trump ad- uted; Trump’s final TV campaign his article, and he uses it in passing. ministration, a Jew who is related ad, which was reminiscent of ideas There was a reason that former to Trump, or a Jew who supports in the Elders of the Protocols of KKK Grand Wizard David Duke the electoral success of the party Zion; the anti-Semitic slurs that said that the night of Trump’s vic- Trump leads. flooded the chat room at the GOP tory was the happiest of his life, My answer is twofold. First, this convention during the speech of while Richard Spencer, the white- expansive web of guilt is both dis-

4 February 2019

Columns.indd 4 1/16/19 1:38 PM honest and dangerous—especially to the Jewish community. And sec- ond, as I point out in the piece, even in some cases where rabbinical authorities could plausibly make the case for cherem, it was seen as a reckless and disruptive act that war- February 2019 Vol. 147 : No. 2 ranted divine punishment. Which is to say, you don’t have to approve of working for the U.S. government during Trump’s presidency to dis- John Podhoretz, Editor approve of what is unmistakably Abe Greenwald, Senior Editor disproportionate retaliation. Noah C. Rothman, Associate Editor I would add as well that Mr. � Falbaum has been ill served by the Carol Moskot, Publisher sources he marshals to make his Kejda Gjermani, Digital Publisher case. Presumably Mr. Falbaum is Leah Rahmani, Publishing Associate referring to the Anti-Defamation � League’s survey when he mentions Ilya Leyzerzon, Business Director the recent surge in anti-Semitic Stephanie Roberts, Business Manager incidents (though I believe the ADL � pegged it at a 60 percent increase, Terry Teachout, Critic-at-Large not 50 percent). As law professor � David Bernstein has demonstrated Board of Directors at length, those numbers were in- Daniel R. Benson, Chairman flated by nearly 200 acts in which the Meredith Berkman, Paul J. Isaac, perpetrator was later conclusively Michael J. Leffell, Jay P. Lefkowitz, shown to have no connection to the Steven Price, Gary L. Rosenthal, president or right-wing ideology at Michael W. Schwartz, Paul E. Singer all. Additionally, the ADL notes that increased reporting probably ac- counts for some of the overall spike, and that many of the incidents took Cover Design: Carol Moskot place on college campuses, hardly bastions of alt-right hate. To send us a letter to the editor: [email protected] As for relying on a claim by We will edit letters for length and content. Jonathan Weisman, well—we can To make a tax-deductible donation: [email protected] mention that his book was panned For advertising inquiries: [email protected] as shallow and ignorant by both For customer service: [email protected] left and right, or we can point out that he recently wrote the following sentence on Twitter, af- ter Alice Walker recommended an Commentary (ISSN 0010-2601) is published monthly (except for a combined July/ anti-Semite in the pages of the New August issue) by Commentary, Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization. Editorial and business offices: 561 Seventh Avenue, 16th Floor, New York, NY, 10018. Telephone: (212) 891-1400. Fax: (212) York Times: “I didn’t know David 891-6700. Customer Service: [email protected] or (212) 891-1400. Icke and I wrote a book on rising Subscriptions: One year $45, two years $79, three years $109, USA only. To subscribe please go bigotry.” to www.commentarymagazine.com/subscribe-digital-print. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, Mr. Falbaum’s heart is surely and additional mailing offices. Subscribers will receive electronic announcements of forthcoming issues. Single copy: U.S. is $5.95; Canada is $7.00. All back issues are available in electronic in the right place, but let’s just say form at commentarymagazine.com. Postmaster: Send address changes to Commentary, P.O. Box it’s a good thing he reads Com- 420235, Palm Coast, FL, 32142. Unsolicited manuscripts must be accompanied by a stamped, mentary. self-addressed envelope. Letters intended for publication may be edited. Indexed in Reader’s Guide, Book Review Digest, and elsewhere. U.S. Newsstand Distribution by COMAG Marketing Group, 155 Village Blvd, Princeton, NJ, 08540. Printed in the USA. Commentary was established in 1 1945 by the American Jewish Committee, which was the magazine’s publisher through 2006 and continues to support its role as an independent journal of thought and opinion. Copyright © 2019 by Commentary, Inc.; all rights reserved under International and Pan American Copyright Conventions.

Columns.indd 5 1/16/19 1:38 PM relative merits of the recipients of their donations. The fundamental point is that charity is defined by giving away one’s own money, not Considering other people’s money. Providing a tax deduction for charitable contri- butions means that for every dollar donated, another 50 cents (or more Kavanaugh for the high-tax states) is forcibly contributed by other taxpayers To the Editor: an extension of efforts to achieve The charitable tax deduction HAT NOAH ROTHMAN de- racial equality through policies is immoral in concept, and it in- W scribes is essentially the that encourage positive discrimi- centivizes fraud and corruption extension of “affirmative action”— nation, such as affirmative action. in practice. The benefits accrue from college admissions and job- Traditionally, advocates for that exclusively to high-income taxpay- hiring to our judicial system—un- kind of social leveling have tried ers who itemize their deductions. dermining the basic principle of to paper over the fact that positive Lower-income Americans contrib- equal protection under the law discrimination also necessitates ute their hard-earned dollars but (“The Social-Justice Injustice,” De- negative discrimination. What dis- receive no tax benefit, because they cember). Social justice is like a tinguishes this form of social-jus- take the standard deduction. More- virus that infects the very cells we tice activism from its predecessors over, the tax deduction applies depend on to protect us. Things is that oppressive discrimination is only to monetary and property don’t get any more insidious than seen by its advocates not as an un- donations but not to the time and that. fortunate byproduct but as the pri- effort donated by millions of hard- Stanley Spatz mary desired effect. As for Howard working Americans. Hollywood, Florida F. Jaeckel’s point, those who may The corruption, both legal and benefit from the reckoning that illegal, associated with donation of 1 privileged white males such as Bret property is endemic. Donations of Kavanaugh presumably deserve stock are valued at their appreci- To the Editor: are a secondary consideration. The ated worth, but taxes are never paid OAH ROTHMAN uses the objective is to mete out the come- on the gain. Thus, wealthy “benefac- Nwords of Brett Kavanaugh’s uppance due those of certain cir- tors” such as Ted Turner gave away persecutors in the press and the cumstances of birth. It’s prejudice, appreciated stock to the UN, and Senate to show—irrefutably and pure and simple, but prejudice is more than 75 percent of the value chillingly—that they cared not a nothing new. What’s truly shocking was recouped in the tax avoidance whit about what he did or didn’t do is how many elites in positions of and deduction. Rich environmen- as a teenager. influence have adopted it. talists like the board members of The ideology of identity was the the Nature Conservancy donate the only thing that mattered. The indi- 1 “value” of easements to protect the vidual fate of the enemy was of no views of their beach houses. Dona- consequence. tions of art and vehicles are routine- Let’s be clear about what these ly overvalued for tax deductions. people represent: It is Stalinism Charitable Foundations, such as the infamous writ small. Clinton Foundation, are established Howard F. Jaeckel Deductions to employ friends, relatives, and New York City political allies, with the payments To the Editor: for staff, contractors, and luxurious 1 AMES PIERESON and Naomi travel expenses subsidized by the JSchaefer Riley miss the mark taxpayers. (“The Givers and Their Attack- The idea that a tax deduction is Noah Rothman writes: ers,” December). We should not be needed to support charitable insti- N A WAY, Stanley Spatz is correct. distracted by the way in which the tutions is flawed, and it demeans IModern social-justice activism is “givers” earned their wealth or the the motives of donors. The vast

6 Letters : February 2019

Columns.indd 6 1/16/19 1:38 PM majority of Americans donate their But our piece was not intend- tors,” December). One of the main time and money with no contribu- ed as a defense of the policy. reasons that NFL viewing is down tion from unwilling taxpayers. The We are mainly disagreeing with is that some players take a knee current system is designed by the the increasingly popular idea that during the national anthem. Their rich for the benefit of the rich—it the charitable deduction requires lack of respect for those who undermines the moral value of wealthy people to donate chari- have no knees to bend because charity. table dollars to the poor, or to of war injuries is an affront to The authors are correct that causes favored by liberals. Indeed, many. Their political commentary the end result of government-sup- many of the charitable deduction’s has nothing to do with sport. ported charity will be government- critics (including Rob Reich) sug- Mr. Epstein is correct in acknowl- controlled charity. Their concern gest that the effectiveness of tax edging Tiger Woods’s public per- is warranted. If you accept govern- policy with regard to philanthro- sona (grim, sour, temperamental). ment funding, you must live by py—indeed, philanthropy itself— Woods is so focused on competition government rules. But the only should be judged only based on that he loses sight of the pleasure solution is to end the tax deduc- how much it redistributes wealth. that should come with such talent. tion for charitable contributions This judgement reflects not only a As far as the Brooklyn Dodgers as soon as possible. Let people give misunderstanding of the policy’s moving to California, there was away their own money, not other purpose but also an overly narrow a time when the two most hated people’s. and shortsighted view of America’s people in Brooklyn were Adolf Seth Schwartz generosity. Hitler and Dodgers owner Walter Dickerson, Maryland O’Malley. But O’Malley was forced to move because there was no park- 1 ing around Ebbets Field. As one 1 sportswriter quipped, “The home of the Dodgers is harder to get into than the Social Register and harder James Piereson and Naomi Schae- to get out of than Alcatraz.” fer Riley write: I enjoy high-school sports— UCH of what Seth Schwartz Sporting except for some of the immature M says about the charitable behavior of the players’ parents. deduction is accurate. There is no And I also enjoy Mr. Epstein’s grace- doubt that the charitable exemp- Lives ful writing and perceptive insights. tion is abused in many cases. On To the Editor: Jenene Stookesberry the other hand, charitable dona- NCE AGAIN, kudos to my Denver, Colorado tions fund a large nonprofit sector Ofavorite writer Joseph Ep- that employs 10 percent or so of stein for articulating my thoughts the U.S. workforce and does a great about contemporary sports fig- 1 deal to strengthen America’s civil ures—many of whom are spoiled, society. pampered babies (“Our Gladia-

Commentary 7

Columns.indd 7 1/16/19 1:38 PM SOCIAL COMMENTARY The Psychological War on Masculinity

CHRISTINE ROSEN

F YOU ARE A PSYCHOLOGIST concerned about What, then, will the kinder, gentler, nontra- the health and well-being of boys and men, there ditional masculinity ushered in by the APA’s eager Iare many matters to which you might turn your practitioners look like? Reading the report, you’d be attention: In the United States, these would include forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled across a term drug use, high suicide rates, educational achievement paper written by a mediocre women’s-studies major. rates that lag far behind those of women, and short- Theory and jargon suffuse the very first guideline, ened life expectancy, to name just a few. But if you which states, “Psychologists strive to recognize that examined the recently issued American Psychological masculinities are constructed based on social, cultural, Association guidelines for practitioners who treat and contextual norms.” We are told that “dominant mas- boys and men, you would think the main challenge culinity was historically predicated on the exclusion of facing men today is masculinity itself. men who were not white, heterosexual, cisgender, able- Masculinity, according to the report, is a “particu- bodied, and privileged.” lar constellation of standards that have held sway over By guideline three we are, predictably, reading large segments of the population, including: anti-femi- about the impact of “power, privilege, and sexism,” and ninity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weak- readers are reminded that “male privilege often comes ness, and adventure, risk, and violence.” In a summary of with a cost in the form of adherence to sexist ideolo- the study on the APA’s website, Stephanie Pappas writes gies designed to maintain male power that also restrict of the guidelines, “Thirteen years in the making, they men’s ability to function adaptively.” draw on more than 40 years of research showing that The report is heavily biased against masculine traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and characteristics, which are asserted (without proof) to that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes be harmful and which psychologists are encouraged damage that echoes both inwardly and outwardly.” to quash. As one clinician told Pappas, “the clinician’s And so “traditional masculinity” now joins role. . . can be to encourage men to discard the harm- “patriarchy” as an abstract but menacing force that ful ideologies of traditional masculinity (violence, exercises complete power over its hapless conduits sexism) and find flexibility in the potentially positive (men) who then wield it to harm everyone else. (Pa- aspects (courage, leadership).” Note that when posi- triarchy does not go unmentioned in the guidelines; tive aspects of traditional masculinity are mentioned, as psychology professor Ronald F. Levant told Pappas, they are merely “potentially positive,” while things like “though men benefit from patriarchy, they are also violence and sexism are described unequivocally as impinged upon by patriarchy.”) “ideologies of traditional masculinity.” Missing entirely from the report is any mention of Christine Rosen is completing a book on the cul- the one real thing (as opposed to made-up post-structur- ture of the Internet. alist theoretical things) that does impact men: testoster-

8 February 2019

Columns.indd 8 1/16/19 1:38 PM one. Instead we read of “heteronormative assumptions” are merely trying to navigate life’s many challenges. and “binary identity” and “microaggressions.” As Toby Attacks on masculinity sacrifice the best in- Young noted in the Spectator, “the word ‘transgender’ terests of individual patients to service a political occurs more often (56) than ‘masculine’ (53).” As for what agenda. Consider the final guideline offered in the psychologists should do with men who are stubbornly, report: “Work with public health officials to dissemi- traditionally masculine, the guidelines advise: “Strive nate information regarding the destructive aspects of to create psychoeducational classes and workshops de- rigid notions of masculinity may result in inclusion of signed to promote gender empathy, respectful behavior, gender-sensitive public health initiatives for boys and and communication skills.” Group hug, everyone! men. Psychologists also are encouraged to advocate Even when the guidelines properly identify for more financial support for research studies aimed some of the challenges facing boys (such as the fact at boys and men with special attention to neglected that they are falling behind girls academically), its areas of research, such as examining masculinity with authors miss an opportunity to deal with actual chal- other social identity–based experiences.” lenges as opposed to theoretical ones. Why is the edu- Consider a father involved in a custody battle. cational system more amenable to traditionally female What happens when he takes his son hunting and behavior in the classroom a therapist, following the than to male behavior? At APA’s guidelines, deter- the elementary-school lev- Left-leaning psychologists might not mines that such behavior el, where most teachers are like men who embody stoicism, or the encourages “heteronorma- female and where the sup- tive assumptions” and vio- posed pathologies of boys competitive instinct that fuels high lence? What if the family- (e.g., difficultly sitting still achievers, or the disciplined aggression court judge agrees? and concentrating) often that makes for an ideal soldier, but Calling for an end to first emerge, such behavior masculine behavior won’t is viewed as early evidence our world would be a less free and help the men who most of the disease of “tradition- prosperous place without them. need guidance. On the con- al masculinity” rather than trary, it polarizes them. This an understandable expres- is why far-right extremists sion of frustration with a system that doesn’t always online describe the world as divided between real men take the needs of young boys into account. (themselves) and “soy boys” (everyone who disagrees And so the guidelines paint boys as the bad guys with them). Their reactionary masculinity and puerile ruining school for everyone else. Although they concede posturing is unlikely to be improved by psychologists that “addressing the school-related problems of boys hectoring them about their male privilege and “boy is also important,” they deem it so “because many of code” norms. the problems posed by boys in schools (e.g., classroom These guidelines will effectively be APA policy disruption, poor organization, sexual harassment, bul- for the next 10 years, serving as the guideposts for lying, discourtesy) have a detrimental impact on the all therapists who treat male patients. In a culture academic and social experiences of other students.” As already rife with casual misandry and one where hy- to what is causing Johnny to squirm in his chair dur- peremotional responses move at the speed of Twitter, ing social studies or bother his classmate when he’s there is plenty of room for a virtue like stoicism, which distracted? Easy: “Constricted notions of masculinity the APA claims is harmful to men. Left-leaning psy- emphasizing aggression, homophobia, and misogyny chologists might not like men who embody stoicism, may influence boys to direct a great deal of their energy or the competitive instinct that fuels high achievers, into disruptive behaviors such as bullying, homosexual or the disciplined aggression that makes for an ideal taunting, and sexual harassment rather than healthy soldier, but our world would be a less free and prosper- academic and extracurricular activities.” ous place without them. As these guidelines reveal, an abstraction like In The Triumph of the Therapeutic, Philip Rieff “traditional masculinity” brings confusion rather than noted, “Power is one thing. Authority another. Therapeu- clarity to the challenges facing boys and men. It also tics derive their authority from their role faiths.” As these provides convenient cover to ideologically motivated new APA guidelines suggest, today’s adherents of the psychologists who would rather complain about broad- therapeutic faith worship the false god of intersectional- er structural forces than engage with the messy realities ity. One can only hope that this modern Baal will eventu- of male patients who, like ever other person on earth, ally enjoy the fate of its predecessor. q

Commentary 9

Columns.indd 9 1/16/19 1:38 PM WASHINGTON COMMENTARY You Must Take Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Seriously

ANDREW FERGUSON

LD-TIMERS will remember the era when get- Sanders campaign asked her to undertake a long-shot ting profiled on 60 Minutes was a cultural challenge to a veteran Democratic congressman in the O laurel almost as impressive as making the 2018 primary, she said sure. cover of Time. It meant you were Somebody! Even so, This average–Joe Millennial narrative helped, 60 Minutes can still pack a punch. When the show but her route to success lay through Twitter, Face- devoted its first segment of its first show of the new book, and Instagram. We are long past the time when year to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the freshly minted politicians pretended to be embarrassed about the congresswoman from the Bronx and Queens, the buzz “inauthentic” show-biz machinery of image-making in Washington easily lasted for, my heavens, a good half and self-promotion. AOC’s use of social media calls to an hour—maybe even an hour. Then we went back to mind Astaire dancing or Rickey Henderson swiping thinking about President Trump. second. It is effortless mastery. Buzzfeed’s Katherine Let me linger a moment longer on Ocasio-Cor- Miller—no millennial sentimentalist—compared her tez, or AOC, as her fans, among whom I include myself, with other politicians praised for their social-media call her. Already her “personal story” has become savvy. “If Cory Booker is pretty good at Instagram as far universally known among the politically sentient, and as politicians go,” Miller wrote, “the vibe’s still some- Anderson Cooper shared it with viewers of 60 Minutes, times like your Bible study leader giving you a college too. It’s a fairy tale for our progressive moment—a Cin- campus tour. Ocasio-Cortez uses Instagram [as] the derella story as told by Saul Alinsky. rest of us do—reflexively, incidentally.” Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx less than AOC broadcast her campaign in daily, some- 30 years ago to Spanish-speaking parents who met in times hourly, installments. And then, during down- Puerto Rico. Her father ran a small business; her moth- time at Starbucks or cooking an Instant Pot dinner in er cleaned houses to make ends meet. They bought a her shoebox apartment, she would speak directly into modest house in Westchester to spare their little girl her phone’s camera and take questions from her rapid- the indignities of a Bronx childhood. When the father ly expanding flock of followers (now numbering more died, during her sophomore year at Boston University, than 2 million on each medium). Once elected, she loans and scholarships allowed Ocasio-Cortez to finish took them all along with her to what she wittily called her degree in something called “international rela- Congress Camp—orientation for freshman legislators. tions”—ideal training, as it happened, for her ensuing She never passed up a chance to be tendentious: She careers as a community organizer, political gadfly, and lamented the “painful” sight of statues of patriarchal bartender. It was the bartending, no surprise, that kept forebears in Statuary Hall and said the “supernice” the wolf from the door. When veterans of the Bernie grandeur of Washington’s Union Station proved that “infrastructure is worth investing in.” (Noted.) Her Andrew Ferguson’s column last month was about dispatches were and are mesmerizing, proselytizing, Charles Krauthammer. and normalizing, all at once.

10 February 2019

Columns.indd 10 1/16/19 1:38 PM But from the beginning her fans have come for Congress, in the 1980s, certain legislators frequently more than politics. AOC is a package deal. She uses disappeared for a week or two. Their staffs discreetly her own life story as a lesson in uplift and self-im- called it a vacation; the rest of us knew it as “detox.” provement, and the effect is as American as a Gordita AOC shows no signs of substance abuse. Indeed, Crunch. If she can live the dream, you can too! “You are it’s far more likely that the force of her icy discipline good enough to do whatever you want,” she said in an will be mismeasured. You see the discipline in matters early Instagram post. “You are beautiful enough … you large and small. In the way she dramatizes her past, can grow through your imperfections. And you can for example: She is careful to speak of lessons learned start—right—now.” Mr. Alinsky, meet Tony Robbins. “when I was scrubbing toilets with my mom.” As house Her inevitable gaffes—to use cleaners, she and her mother were the Washington word—have led Charisma is a value of probably polishing a lot of pewter some of her political adversaries to sconces too, but she knows which think she’s a ditz. A few of her mis- the left; it is changeable, chore hits a nerve in the retelling. steps are just the sloppy, wishful sensational, superficial, When reliably liberal “fact-check- thinking of the ideologue, as when ers” slagged her misreading of the she misread a story in the Nation subrational, and almost Nation article, she had the brass magazine to say that the Pentagon always a distraction from to accuse them of pro-Trump bias, had a pile of misappropriated funds what’s essential. It also and not a single Democrat did a lying around (room number un- spit take. specified), totaling $21 trillion. Why doesn’t last. I’m not so Sexism, too, of course: A oh why, she wondered, couldn’t that sure this will hold true dim-witted conservative journalist money be spent on Medicare for all? tweeted a picture of her walking Other mistakes are a symp- in the case of Alexandria down a hallway stylishly dressed tom of the disability, common Ocasio-Cortez. Already she in seemingly pricey couture—his way of zinging the working-class among politicians, known as mo- has proved herself much tormouth, as her enthusiasm to poormouthing that is an essential explain the world to the rest of us smarter and less dopey part of her persona. (She frets that outraces her capacity to choose than Republicans and even she can’t afford an apartment in words properly. Speaking in her Washington.) AOC pretended his mile-a-minute mode on Facebook the establishment media intent was salacious. “If I walked one evening, she seemed to sug- want her to be. into Congress wearing a sack, they gest that the federal government would laugh and take a picture of consisted of three chambers, which she later corrected my backside,” she wrote. “If I walk in with my best sale- to branches—identified, alas, as the House, the Senate, rack clothes, they laugh and take a picture of my back- and the White House. A pretty fundamental mistake, side.” She’s flattering herself, but the congresswoman yes, but America would be a happier place if every knows what she’s doing. Democrat forgot about the Supreme Court so readily. Charisma is a value of the left; it is changeable, In the world of Washington gaffe-making, this sensational, superficial, subrational, and almost al- is small potatoes, especially considering that her ev- ways a distraction from what’s essential. It also doesn’t ery word—her every tweet and Facebook share, her last. I’m not so sure this will hold true in the case of every Instagram story and YouTube vid—draws the AOC. Already she has proved herself much smarter scrutiny of many million people, fans and detractors and less dopey than Republicans and even the estab- alike. Gathered into a little pile, in fact, the gaffes are lishment media want her to be. It would be better if dwarfed by the mountain of Palinisms that Republi- they dropped the sleuthing, motive-mongering, and cans struggled to ignore a decade ago. AOC is a crea- flyspecking and did the unthinkable: take her seri- ture of her time and place, and often the accusations ously. against her amount to little more than that she’s a “People say you don’t understand how to play millennial. As Miller pointed out, that’s what millen- the game,” Anderson Cooper said to her on 60 Minutes. nials like about her. Before Congress convened, AOC “I think it’s really great for people to keep think- took a week off for what she called “self-care,” and ing that,” Ocasio-Cortez said. Republicans snorted derision. But that’s the way they “So you want folks to underestimate you?” talk these days! Besides, when I first began covering “Of course! That’s how I won!”q

Commentary 11

Columns.indd 11 1/16/19 1:38 PM JEWISH COMMENTARY Alone in the Cosmos

MEIR Y. SOLOVEICHIK

Who knows what kind of loneliness is more agonizing: the one which befalls man when he casts his glance at the mute cosmos, at its dark spaces and monotonous drama, or the one that besets man exchanging glances with his fellow man in silence? Who knows whether the first astronaut who will land on the moon, confronted with a strange, weird, and grisly panorama, will feel a greater loneliness than Mr. X, moving along jubilantly with the crowd and exchanging greetings on New Year’s Eve at a public square? —Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, 1965

HIS IS A MOMENT OF astronautical mile- “TDC” in the moon dust at his feet. These are the stones. In December, we commemorated the initials of his daughter, Tracy Dawn Cernan. Because T 50th anniversary of Apollo 8, when three there is no weather on the moon, Tracy’s initials will be American astronauts took the first picture of “earth- on the lunar surface for millions of years, or, as Cernan rise” while reading aloud from the story of creation in put it, the letters will be there “forever, however long Genesis. This was a triumphant moment for America, forever is.” a theological rejoinder to the Khrushchev chortle in It is a striking story. An astronaut, engaged in 1961 that “Gagarin flew into space but didn’t see any a human triumph achieved by few others in his time, god there.” In 2019, we will mark half a century since and by no one else in the entire course of human Neil Armstrong took “one small step for man.” And history, pauses at the last moment not to celebrate as we prepare to commemorate the first man on the himself, but to emphasize his eternal connectedness moon, we would do well to ponder the last (as yet). to another. Interestingly, Cernan himself was later at In 1972, Gene Cernan prepared to leave the lunar a loss to explain what had impelled him to engage in surface and clamber back aboard Apollo 17. No further this singular paternal gesture. “I had no plans to do moon landing was planned. Suddenly, before board- that,” he reflected in an interview. “It just seemed like ing, Cernan paused, bent over, and etched the letters the thing to do at the time....I just did it, and I can’t tell you why.” Meir Y. Soloveichik is the rabbi of Congregation Cernan’s loving gesture in his last moment on Shearith Israel in New York City and the director of the moon reflects something profound about human the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at nature. In the years that American astronauts sought Yeshiva University. supremacy over the Soviet Union, Rabbi Joseph

12 February 2019

Columns.indd 12 1/16/19 1:38 PM Soloveitchik (my great-uncle) wrote and published to the amputation of the other aspect of its identity. some of the century’s most significant essays in Indeed, we face today, as many have noted, an Jewish thought. “The Lonely Man of Faith” was com- epidemic of loneliness. We live in an age of stunning posed soon after Sputnik; his “Majesty of Humility” technological transformation that has seemingly was finished soon after Cernan returned to Earth. increased connectedness but helped decrease com- It is clear that the space race was very much on his munity. We can cross the entire earth in less than a mind, and his insights are even more striking half a day; our correspondence can cross the earth in an century later. instant; and yet we have not found the fellowship Utilizing verses in Genesis, Soloveitchik descri- that we need. “The same technology that has liber- bes two competing drives within human beings, a di- ated us from so much inconvenience and drudgery,” vinely willed dialectic at the core of Ben Sasse recently reflected, “has our nature. One aspect of ourselves also unmoored us from the things seeks a “dignified existence”—the We face today an that anchor our identities. The conquest of nature, technological revolution that has given tens of mastery, and exploration of the un- epidemic of loneliness. millions of Americans the opportu- known. The 20th-century quest to We live in an age of nity to live like historic royalty has “slip the surly bonds of earth” was stunning technological also outpaced our ability to figure not, for Soloveitchik, a Promethean out what community, friendships, intrusion into the heavens; on the transformation that has and relationships should look like contrary, the conquest of space is seemingly increased in the modern world.” Gene Cernan the greatest manifestation of man remembering his daughter while being made in the Almighty’s im- connectedness but helped looking at Earth from the moon age: “Man reaching for the distant decrease community. is more than a familial gesture; it is a reminder that even the most stars is acting in harmony with his We can cross the entire nature which was created, willed, extraordinary cosmic achievement and directed by his Maker.” earth in less than a day; cannot compensate for the other Yet for all the biblical gran- our correspondence can side of ourselves, which demands deur made manifest in the astro- fellowship with others beyond our- naut’s achievement, that reflects cross the earth in an selves. only half of our selves. A life of instant; and yet we have It is hard to fathom that so technological achievement, and of many years have gone by in which awe-inspiring exploration, does not not found the fellowship we have not returned to the moon. create a life of meaning: “An atheist that we need. “Look up from your BlackBerry cosmonaut circling the earth, ad- one night,” Charles Krauthammer vising his superiors who placed him wrote 10 years ago, on the 40th an- in orbit that he did not encounter any angels, might niversary of Armstrong’s landing. “That is the moon. lay claim to dignity because he courageously mastered On it are exactly 12 sets of human footprints—un- space; he is, however, very far from experiencing a touched, unchanged, abandoned. For the first time in redeemed existence.” history, the moon is not just a mystery and a muse, but Soloveitchik foresaw a danger facing the West. a nightly rebuke.” Technology has progressed in leaps America’s celebration of its technological achieve- and bounds since Krauthammer wrote those words in ments during the space race might ultimately efface 2009, and yet no 13th set of footprints has joined the the other equally important aspect of human nature, first 12. We seem to have lost our will to explore. a desire for communion with others: “There, not only But that is not all that much of the Western hands are joined, but experiences as well; there, one world has lost. As we mark the 50th anniversary of the hears not only the rhythmic sound of the production greatest technological achievement in human history, line, but also the rhythmic beat of hearts starved for we would do well to remember that footprints are not existential companionship and all-embracing sympa- the only remnant of man’s visit to the moon, and that thy,” A fierce anti-Communist, Soloveitchik no doubt the three letters lovingly and eternally etched into the rejoiced in the planting of the American flag on the lunar surface may tell us more about our humanity moon; at the same time, he worried that the West’s fo- than any other event during those halcyon years when cus on its technological achievements alone could lead we sought to explore the heavens.q

Commentary 13

Columns.indd 13 1/16/19 1:38 PM EUROPE DOES NOT EXIST FABULOUS RICHES, HALF A BILLION PEOPLE, AND THE WORLD’S SECOND-LARGEST ECONOMY DO NOT A SUPERPOWER MAKE BY JOSEF JOFFE

Y THE NUMBERS, the European It does not play in the superpower league, and Union is a giant. Its economy exceeds it does not muster the will to do so, no matter how China’s by $7 trillion and is just a bit splendiferous the rhetoric of “self-reliance” and “self- smaller than America’s $20 trillion. assertion.” The cause is rooted in postwar history. Eu- Russia? Its GDP of $ 1.7 trillion is rope was shattered and had to rebuild, and so came to petty cash. On paper, the EU nations rely for its existential safety on the United States. At marshal as many soldiers as does the height of the Cold War, up to 300,000 U.S. troops, the United States, and half a million more than Rus- backed up by thousands of tactical nuclear weapons, B sia. Their combined population dwarfs both. But if one stood guard at the Iron Curtain. Then at the end of the measures by its weight in world affairs, Europe is a runt. last century, its deadly foe, the Soviet Union, simply vanished, committing suicide on Christmas Day 1991 Josef Joffe serves on the editorial council of Die Zeit and leaving behind Russia and 14 orphan republics. in Hamburg and as a fellow of Stanford’s Hoover Insti- Europe was now “whole and free,” as George tution. His most recent book is The Myth of America’s H.W. Bush famously proclaimed, and life was sweet. Decline. Why dabble in power politics when history had ended,

14 February 2019

Joffe.indd 14 1/16/19 2:13 PM when capitalism and democracy were on a roll? For anti-immigrant parties is booming. With the great ex- the next 25 years, the nations of the EU cashed in their ception of Spain, they have captured seats in all of the peace dividends, whittling their armies down to the Continent’s parliaments; in seven countries, foremost core. Europe now gloried in its avant-garde role as a among them Italy and Austria, they co-govern or vote “civilian power” or “power of peace.” with the ruling coalition. Europe’s traditional parties Take Germany, Europe’s largest country and the are losing out to the extremes. The moral of this tale: world’s fourth-largest economy. After the Berlin Wall A munificent welfare state and open borders of the fell 30 years ago, the forces of the reunited country kind initially welcomed by German Chancellor Angela were cut by two-thirds. Its 2,800 tanks dwindled to Merkel in 2015 do not for a happy marriage make. They 280. Today, its navy has six U-boats, none of which is spawn resentment, envy, and cultural pushback. operational. When Europe acts, it does so behind the Meanwhile, Donald Trump is muscling in with United States, as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Serbia, and Lib- his trade wars against the EU. He thinks that Uncle ya or, if alone, out of real harm’s way, as in Mali. Sam has been suckered into protecting wealthy free The halcyon days are over. Europe confronts riders who have outsourced their security to the Unit- new threats aplenty. Indeed, at no time since the birth ed States. Shape up, or we ship out, his message runs. of European integration in 1952 has the Old Continent Naturally, the Europeans are nervous, especially those faced so many perils all at once, inside and out. on NATO’s eastern border. Don’t blame Trump alone, if you want to blame someone; it was Barack Obama LOTTING TO RESTORE Russia’s grandeur, who brought down U.S. forces to some 30,000. During Vladimir Putin is pressing on Europe from the Cold War, the number was 10 times higher. It was P the east. He gobbled up Crimea, then sliced off Obama who told the Atlantic: “Free riders aggravate Ukraine’s southeast with his local surrogates. A new me.” Trump has actually boosted the U.S. military pres- round of confrontation is unfolding in the Sea of Azov, ence in Europe. Nor should we ignore that Europe’s where the Russians intercepted three Ukrainian naval NATO members have been increasing defense outlays vessels late last year, foreshadowing the blockade of since 2014 when Vladimir Putin grabbed Crimea. But Mariupol, Ukraine’s third-busiest port. money doesn’t buy everything. Putin’s purpose is to strangle Ukraine until it In the end, the reason Europe isn’t rising to submits to Moscow’s imperial ambitions. The Nord the moment is that “Europe” does not exist—not as a Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany state and not as a strategic actor that can hold its own (one is completed, the other under construction) are among the restive superpowers. designed to tighten the noose on Kiev, circumventing Ukraine by pumping gas directly across the Baltic Sea. O BE SURE, the EU has made magnificent Dutifully protesting, Europe has neither the means strides toward “ever closer union,” as the nor the will to defend Ukraine, and economic sanc- T 1957 Treaty Establishing the European Com- tions are not popular. The three Baltic states, formerly munity envisioned its future. It has installed various Soviet possessions, are not amused. Though they are accoutrements of a state: a European Parliament, a NATO and EU members, the Baltics might be the next Court of Justice, a Commission as quasi-executive, a victims of Russian hauteur. common currency, a growing body of Community law, From the south, Europe is besieged by vast civil- even integrated battle groups. The EU has “Pesco,” or ian armies. North Africa is the EU’s Mexico, serving “Permanent Strategic Cooperation,” the pledge to pool as springboard for potentially millions of African mi- defense resources and contribute combat units for EU grants in search of a better life. Muslim refugees from missions. the Mideast keep streaming into highly regulated Unfortunately, these feats do not add up to a economies that are far less equipped than the United U.S.E., a United States of Europe. Real power is lodged States to absorb “tired, poor, and huddled masses.” in the national parliaments and executives. The EU-28 High minimum wages and barriers to market en- (soon minus Britain) do not an e pluribus unum make. try undercut the greatest advantage of immigrants Modern history knows no example where na- throughout the ages, which is their willingness to tion-states voluntarily coalesced into one. The United work more for less. New York’s all-night Korean mar- Kingdom is the product of endless war among the war- kets would run afoul of mandated shop-closing hours ring tribes of the Isles. Germany’s 25 city-states and throughout the European Union. kingdoms were fused by “iron and blood” in 1871, to in- The pace of assimilation in Europe keeps lag- voke Bismarck’s famous phrase. In the beginning, the ging behind the rate of immigration. The market for Thirteen Colonies did strike a peaceful deal in Phila-

Commentary 15

Joffe.indd 15 1/16/19 2:14 PM delphia. But in the end, it took a murderous civil war tics.” The “Yellow Vests” were set off late last year by to fuse North and South into one nation. In those four his “green” fuel tax. In truth, they went to war against years, more Americans died than in all wars thereafter. “Macronism”—the attempt to loosen up rigid labor Unification will not be achieved by committees markets and fracture ancient group privileges. hashing it out in Brussels. Or by national parliaments It was déja vu all over again—street vs. state. emasculating themselves for the sake of the greater Within three weeks, the government buckled, as it has European good. To bestride the world as a heavyweight done so often in the past when fishermen, truckers, like the United States requires cracking the hard shells farmers, or students went on strike. So the government of sovereignty, notably in matters of defense and pub- “postponed” the tax by six months. Having shown their lic finance. clout, the protestors kept exacting more concessions. Never in our lifetime will this Europe go to war Say au revoir to reform and rejuvenation à la Macron. because a majority of member states says so. Nor will Merkel was not undone in the streets, but at the elected governments hand over spending and taxation ballot box. In the fall, her ruling Christian Democrats to Brussels—not when their fate at the ballot box hangs were trounced in two critical state elections, while on the state of the business cycle. No national parlia- the “Alternative for Germany,” an anti-immigrant up- ment will give up the power of the purse, the Holy Grail start on the far right, improved its showing by up to of democratic governance. 10 points. Cracking these shells would require fusing 27 In the national polls, Merkel’s Christian Demo- post-Brexit states into one, complete with a supreme crats were down to 29 percent at the beginning of 2019, legislature like Congress and an elected executive like a deadly drop from the mid-forties of the past. Reading the U.S. president. Yet power in Europe remains rooted the handwriting, Merkel beat a tactical retreat, resign- in the European Council representing 27 governments ing as head of her party. In December, the convention jealously guarding their turfs. replaced her with Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a To list such deficits is not to belittle how many Merkel protégé hailing from the tiny state of the Saar- chunks of sovereignty the EU has already pried off. The land, where she had served as prime minister. A Mag- largest is monetary union, which unites 19 of the 27 gie Thatcher she is not. in the eurozone. Still, the common currency may well It was an orderly transition, but Merkel may not have been one bridge too far, as the recurrent crises of last to the end of her term in 2021. Either way, say auf the euro testify—first in Greece, now Italy. While the Wiedersehen to the legendary stability of Germany, eurozone will continue to muddle through, the ”ever which has gone through only eight chancellors while closer union” of the EU as a whole is receding as we Italy has burned through 65 governments since the speak. end of World War II. For decades, Germany was essentially ruled by TART WITH LEADERSHIP. The “engine” the center-right and the center-left. The Christian of integration has always been the Franco- Democrats and Social Democrats either alternated in S German “couple.” This marriage has never been power or governed in tandem, as they have been dur- bliss incarnate; today it yokes two governments at ing the past nine years. This duopoly is history. Long odds with each other and their electorates. gone are the balmy days when these two together net- Who leads and who follows are the questions ted 80 percent of the ballots. If there were a general that govern all politics. For a few years, Germany’s election today, polls say, they would haul in 43 percent. Angela Merkel was feted as uncrowned empress of Their “grand coalition” has shrunk to a “petty coali- Europe. Now she is on the way out, paying the price tion.” While the Social Democrats, as elsewhere in Eu- of opening Germany’s gates to a million-plus Mideast rope, totter on the brink of oblivion, the system has refugees in 2015–16. splintered into six parties, two of which represent the As Merkel stumbled, France’s Emmanuel Ma- radical left and right. Look forward to shaky coalitions cron stepped up in a blaze of glamour. His rhetoric was and shorter-lived governments in a country that used as bold as his ambitions were grandiose. Elected in a to be Europe’s rock of ages. landslide, he would make France great again by recast- So the Franco-German “couple” is walking on ing it and grabbing the helm of the EU. crutches. Vying for leadership, they have never agreed The nakedness of the new emperor, now in his on the what and how of “ever closer union.” Emerging second year, is visible to all. Like so many French gov- from centuries of absolutist rule, the French have be- ernments before him, his was denuded in the streets of come wedded to the all-providing state. They distrust Paris by the usual suspects of French “expressive poli- the free market and look to the government for succor

16 Europe Does Not Exist : February 2019

Joffe.indd 16 1/16/19 2:14 PM and shelter. This is why the Yellow Vests cut Macron Finally, there is the latter-day “Hanseatic League” down to size, clamoring for more spending, shorter that the Dutch are harnessing against the French, now work weeks, and higher wages. Across the Rhine, the that their natural ally Britain is absconding. Informal Germans hearken back to the Holy Roman Empire members are the Scandinavians, the Baltics, and Ire- ,where power was spread across myriad kingdoms, cit- land. These are fiscally conservative and highly com- ies, and duchies. Especially after 12 years of Nazi totali- petitive economies. Germany is a silent partner be- tarianism, Germans have come to cling to federalism cause it is loath to challenge France directly. and states’ rights, be it in Europe or at home. Decen- So much for the rifts inside. Now look at the wider tralization is as German as Volkswagen and bratwurst. world where history has not ended. Geopolitics and geo- France remains the bastion of centralism. economics are back. While Russia grabs land, Chi- Macron wants a European bud- na pushes its “Belt and Road” across Asia get and a European finance min- and into Europe. In the tariff wars, ister to spread the wealth from President Trump deploys raw rich Germany to the stagnat- power to change the terms ing South. With their bal- FOR THE EUROPEANS, of trade in America’s favor. anced budget, the Ger- His contempt for Europe, mans naturally insist ONE BIG AMERICAN especially for Angela on fiscal rigor, push- Merkel, is boundless. ing the members of UMBRELLA IS MORE RELIABLE For him, Europe is a fat “Club Med” to get THAN LOTS OF LITTLE mouse too timid even their house in order. to roar. This tug-of-war be- EUROPEAN ONES WHILE A The U.S., China, tween the (Protes- SINGLE EUROPEAN ARMY and Russia are rearm- tant) North and the ing as they stake out (Catholic) South has REMAINS A BEAUTIFUL DREAM. spheres of influence. always bedeviled the Where does that leave EU, mimicking the reli- FOR THE UNITED STATES, those 450 million post- gious divides of the Thirty IT IS ALL ABOUT Brexit Europeans with the Years’ War in the 17th cen- world’s second-largest GDP? tury. Today, this cleavage is BEING THERE. The 21st century does not fa- just one among many threats to vor this mighty “civilian power.” “ever closer union.” As the world is Its best weapons, such as commerce, muscling in, the EU is drifting apart. friendly persuasion, and institutionalized conflict resolution, are being blunted. For all the breath- REXIT IS THE MOST BLATANT symptom taking advances of our time, the new arena of world poli- of Eurofatigue. The United Kingdom would tics looks more like the 18th and 19th centuries than the B rather face not-so-splendid isolation than second half of the 20th, the Golden Age of the West. submit to Brussels, and damn the gargantuan costs of defection. For the UK it is not “ever closer,” but simply HEN ARMS BUY INFLUENCE, eco- “no union.” nomic strength trades at a discount. Meanwhile, Poland and Hungary are marching WUnless there is a mailed fist beneath the to the beat of authoritarian nationalism. They will white glove of diplomacy, states will not excel at power gladly take the goodies—billions in subsidies—from politics. Nor will the EU, and then for reasons of psy- Brussels but refuse to obey its dictates of liberal-dem- chology rather than lack of clout. Preceded by million- ocratic virtue. fold slaughter in two world wars, 70 years under the Italy is in a class of its own. In a historical first, it strategic umbrella of the U.S. have set in motion an has voted right-wing and left-wing populists into power. unprecedented cultural transformation. Hostile brothers, the League and the Five Stars are held Once the Europeans were a race of warriors who in harness by “Italy first” and anti-EU resentment. If they conquered the four corners of the world. But the mil- don’t shrink the national debt, the eurozone’s largest as lion-fold slaughter that almost led to Europe’s suicide a fraction of the GDP, the endless Greek euro crisis will in the 20th century, not to speak of the industrial an- look like a hiccup. With its tiny economy, Greece can be nihilation of Jews and other “subhumans,” may have saved. Italy, Europe’s fourth-largest, cannot. cracked its collective soul. The spirit of “Never again!”

Commentary 17

Joffe.indd 17 1/16/19 2:14 PM has overwhelmed the quest for booty, glory, and domi- Union grew from six to 28 nations. But it would take a nation. Heroism is out, discretion and pacificity are the “United States of Europe” to play into the great-power better part of valor—and far less costly to boot. league, where force is the ultimate currency of clout. Maybe Tocqueville was right when he attributed To make Europe great again, the post-Brexit 27 to bourgeois society “that coolness of understanding would have to coalesce into a single state with a strong that renders men comparatively insensible to the vio- executive characterized by “decision, activity, secrecy lent and poetical excitement of arms [and] quenches and dispatch,” as Alexander Hamilton famously ar- the military spirit.” It is a “constant rule that among gued in the Federalist Papers. Alas, with their national civilized nations the warlike passions will become histories dating back to the days of Rome, the EU 27 more rare and less intense in proportion as social con- will not replicate the fusion of America’s 13 colonies ditions are more equal.” The sage was writing about in our lifetime. America, but his prediction fits Western Europe to a T. Time is not on their side, not with Vladimir Pu- The signs abound. You have to look hard for tin pressing in and Trump threatening to move out. oversized national flags fluttering above gas stations So it will help to buy some insurance by arming and in Europe as they do in the U.S. Once an officer’s ca- training a credible force embedded in NATO, history’s reer was the quickest way to status and advancement oldest alliance of free nations. Why NATO? Cold-eyed in Europe. Today, the military enjoys about as much analysis would impress on both Americans and Euro- prestige as the post office. Soldiering is a job, not a peans what a good deal the alliance has been. national calling. Only France and Britain boast rem- For the Europeans, one big American umbrella nants of an ancient warrior culture. Its values—honor, is more reliable than lots of little European ones while duty, self-sacrifice—have dwindled in favor of civilian a single European army remains a beautiful dream. virtues like cooperation and compromise. For the United States, it is all about being there. The How to re-establish moral worth in the face of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, whose 70th birth- an unspeakable past—conquest, colonialism, and ex- day is coming up this fall, has spared the U.S. a remake ploitation, as the catechism of correctness has it? Eu- of World Wars I and II, when it first hung back and rope draws righteousness from its new incarnation then had to pay with hundreds of thousands of fallen as a moral superpower that will study war no more. to restore the balance. Staying in Europe after 1945 Setting an example as “light unto the nations,” it will was a wondrous blessing; not a single shot was fired teach the world the wisdom of accommodation and in Europe during the Cold War. It is always more eco- rules-bound intercourse and so transmute strife into nomical to be in place than to have to fight your way win-win for all. That’s what “civilian powers” do best; back in. Try now to dislodge the Russians from Syria. this is where the EU’s great comparative advantage The point is not to coddle Europe, but to stress pays off most. Clausewitz, who preached the twinship America’s well-considered interests. Squeezed by Rus- of force and diplomacy, doesn’t live here anymore. sia and China, the U.S. would not want to ditch Europe, For decades, acting (and orating) in this manner not with its half a billion people and the world’s second- was a marvelous business model, keeping Europe out largest GDP. Even the greatest of powers will not thrive of harm’s way and filling its coffers. Today, the model behind the walls of Fortress America. Just like nature, is losing its luster because the cultural transformation international politics abhors a vacuum, and those who depended on a reliable American security guarantee. wish the U.S. ill will be only too happy to fill it. That pillar is not so sturdy now. As Angela Merkel puts The U.S. would not be doing the Europeans a it in the age of Trump, “we have to go some way toward favor by continuing to extend a credible guarantee. It taking our destiny into our own hands.” would be doing what interest and prudence demand in Well spoken. Yet Europe’s tragedy is the gulf be- a world where Russia and China want to make Amer- tween fabulous wealth and feeble will, between its glo- ica small again. Without its older European cousins, rious past and a future now dimmed by the return of the U.S. would be a lonely giant with a limp. To let go of power politics. The new threats are devaluing the EU’s America’s largest strategic asset would be an act of fol- abundant civilian assets: trade and investment, sua- ly that would not even play in the long term in Trump’s sion and cooptation. In the benign setting of yore, the red-state redoubt.q

18 Europe Does Not Exist : February 2019

Joffe.indd 18 1/16/19 2:15 PM The Attack on Luck How social-justice theory aims to control everything, including that which cannot be controlled By Noah Rothman

N 2018, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY of European philosophical thought to the footnotes. became the subject of a critical New York But that is not how philosophy works. Its thinkers are Times article following the school’s deci- interdependent, each relating to the others. There can sion to establish a program for the study be no comprehensive study of Kant without the study of “political economy and moral science.” of his contemporary David Hume. Nor can Descartes Designed to focus on under-taught works be comprehended without understanding Aristotle, such as Adam Smith’s economic philosophy Plato, and Socrates. and The Federalist Papers, the program came under The idea that Western and non-Western philoso- fire becauseI it was “too heavily focused on white male phy can be entirely compartmentalized is a product of thinkers from the United States and Europe.” ignorance. Some of the most influential works of medi- This kind of racial reductionism is common eval Islamic philosophy, for example, were composed in academia. In 2017, students at the University of in Spain—a nation that engaged in a fair bit of coloniz- London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, bent ing long after its Islamic influences had been integrat- on “decolonizing” the syllabus and “address[ing] the ed into Iberian society. Those Islamic philosophers, structural and epistemological legacy of colonialism,” heavily influenced by their classical predecessors, in demanded that thinkers such as Plato, Descartes, and turn had a profound effect on the philosophical minds Kant give way, for the most part, to non-Western phi- that came after them. The Dutch philosopher Baruch losophers. If white European philosophers must be Spinoza set Europe on a course toward the Enlighten- studied, let it be from “a critical standpoint.” ment, but he was also a dark-skinned Sephardic Jew At first glance, it is not unreasonable for from Portugal. Spinoza’s works are, however, unlikely students who want to immerse themselves in non- to appear on the preferred reading list of London’s Western cultures to maximize every opportunity to do irate anti-colonial student activists. Their objections precisely that, even if it means relegating the giants are less a matter of geography or ethnicity than a self- referential preconception about what they believe Noah Rothman is the associate editor of Com- ought to be considered white European thought. mentary. This article is excerpted from his new book, An item posted on the website Accredited Times Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America, praising the anti-white philosophy campaign asserts out now from Regnery Gateway. that our own age, graced by the philosophy of the

Commentary 19

Rothman.indd 19 1/16/19 1:40 PM Social-justice activists don’t know what they don’t know, but they also don’t seem to care that they don’t know it. They are not familiar with the Western philosophy they claim to resent.

great hip-hop artists, is “far superior” to that of the delivery. If justice is giving each man his “due,” then ancient Greeks. “When modern geniuses like Kanye those who are owed justice may seize it—by force, West and Dr. Dre are still very much alive,” writes a if necessary. But who determines what is “due” to self-described “transpecies activist, new age spiritual someone? guru, and chief diversity coordinator,” “it is nothing Aristotle’s descendants were not as comfort- short of perverse that our youth are forced to study able as he was with a stratified society. Subsequent philosophy from over two thousand years ago.” thinkers including Rousseau, Hegel, and eventually These social-justice activists don’t know what Marx all took a stab at understanding and addressing they don’t know, but they also don’t seem to care that the causes of social inequality. Many philosophers of they don’t know it. They are not familiar with the justice during the Enlightenment focused on the es- Western philosophy they claim to resent. They don’t tablishment of just institutions. With the right social appear to know much about philosophy in general— mechanisms, they reasoned, inequality will take care neither the philosophy of others nor even their own. of itself. The pursuit of social justice is rich with history. It’s a This was not sufficient for John Rawls, the most savage irony that since the philosophical minds who influential political philosopher of our time. At Har- gave birth to the concept of social justice were, by and vard, he built a theory of social justice that animates large, white males, they would be spurned by their its activists today, many of whom have probably never disciples. read a single word of his magnum opus, A Theory of Justice. RISTOTLE WAS AMONG THE FIRST West- How do you create a just institution? Rawls pre- ern philosophers to examine the nature of scribes what he calls the “veil of ignorance,” according A justice—who should enjoy its benefits and to which justice is “redistributed” by those who have how inequality results in or exacerbates injustices. If no idea who the lucky and unlucky recipients will be. justice is viewed as a commodity, Aristotle thought, it The veil ensures that the distributors of justice cannot should be equitably distributed across a population. know the class, abilities, tastes, physical characteris- Because all commodities are finite, a happy medium tics, or morality of the people who will benefit from lies somewhere between getting more than your fair their actions. As much as these distributors of justice share and not getting enough. might want to bestow advantages on themselves or Aristotle saw justice in terms familiar to future their particular tribe, they are blinded by the veil. generations of redistributionists, even Karl Marx. If a Their adversaries might end up being the benefi- society is possessed of only a handful of unique musi- ciaries of their unfair distribution of social goods as cal instruments, for example, Aristotle thought that much as their allies will. they should be distributed to those who can play them Therefore, the operator behind the veil will best, giving society the maximum benefit from their choose the fairest distribution possible—to make sure use. This might seem a reasonable judgment if you his own people are not disadvantaged by the system. don’t consider some of the more intangible virtues No one should enjoy an unearned advantage in a just we prize now, such as dignity, property rights, and society, Rawls theorizes, and the veil eliminates that enfranchisement. temptation. Rawls contends that this is the place from Aristotle endorsed equality, but not as we un- which any just society must begin. derstand it today. He took for granted slavery and the “Activists, social workers, and policymakers inferiority of women. In fact, Aristotle saw the human may have absorbed only secondhand versions of condition as suited to social stratification. His concept Rawls,” the sociologist Carl Bankston says. “Neverthe- of justice exemplifies a problem with which all of his less, social justice advocates in general sound quite successors would struggle. If justice is a virtue, it’s a Rawlsian.” He notes, however, that “seeing people as strange one. It is not doled out by the charitable, and positions rather than as individuals implicitly reduces its recipients are not obliged to be grateful upon its them to categories.” Bankston observes that Rawlsian

20 The Attack on Luck : February 2019

Rothman.indd 20 1/16/19 1:40 PM Hayek’s principal objection to social justice was that it distorts the marketplace, which he viewed as the most powerful engine of human potential and happiness.

thought leads to the division of society based on per- social justice…nobody knows,” Hayek told William F. ceived levels of “victimization or oppression.” Buckley Jr. on Firing Line in 1977. He dismissed the Here is where Rawls’s veil falters somewhat for expression as “empty and meaningless,” “a quasi-re- those seeking social justice in the here and now. Su- ligious belief with no content whatsoever,” having the preme Court decisions such as Brown v. Board of Edu- potential to lead to “the destruction of the indispens- cation, which desegregated public schools, and Lov- able environment in which the traditional moral val- ing v. Virginia, which struck down bans on interracial ues alone can flourish, namely personal freedom.” It marriage, could not ignore the identities of those who is an “intellectually disreputable” idea, which carries suffered discrimination and disenfranchisement. The with it “the mark of demagoguery and cheap journal- policymakers who crafted the Civil Rights and Voting ism, which responsible thinkers ought to be ashamed Rights Acts knew full well which groups were being to use because, once its vacuity is recognized, its use is persecuted and who was doing the persecuting. In dishonest.” He was not a fan. these cases, applying the veil to the redistribution of Hayek’s principal objection to social justice was justice, both social and economic, would have been that it distorts the marketplace, which he viewed as both counterproductive and morally obtuse. the most powerful engine of human potential and This is indeed a key weakness of Rawls’s un- happiness. “Few circumstances will do more to make worldliness. His thought experiment about the veil a person energetic and efficient than the belief that of ignorance is exactly that, an experiment, and that it depends chiefly on him whether he will reach the could apply only in a world in which everyone agreed goals he has set himself,” Hayek contended. He rea- that it was the only just system. And besides that, soned, therefore, that social justice is an illusion. Rawls’s conception of the ideal just society is itself Rawls’s idea of a just institution is a fallacy, problematic, argued his Harvard colleague Robert Hayek declared. The minute that an institution starts Nozick in 1974’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia. redistributing society’s goods, it becomes unjust. The Resources are not, Nozick wrote, the product more a set of institutions commits itself to addressing of divine providence. All goods that exist today were inequalities, the more inequalities it causes: “This crafted, produced, extracted, or designed by the hands would go on until government literally controlled of man. Insofar as someone has secured his resources every circumstance which could affect any person’s legitimately, he has every right to them. The Rawlsian well-being.” No one can depend on anyone but himself idea that resources—both tangible and intangible— to secure his maximum economic benefit. To give in to should be distributed independently of the personal the temptations of distributive justice is to empower investment that brought them into existence has been the state, invite collectivism, socialism, and ultimately tried in the Communist world. Nozick observed that tyranny. conditions in Marxist societies were not only objec- Social justice is “a demand that the state tively unjust but also wildly economically inefficient. should treat different people differently in order to While Nozick criticized Rawlsian philosophy for place them in the same position,” Hayek told Buck- its impracticality, the economist Friedrich A. Hayek ley. “Making people equal—a goal of governmental savaged its immorality in The Mirage of Social Justice, policy—would force government to treat people very the second volume of his three-volume philosophical unequally, indeed.” work, Law, Legislation, and Liberty. A passionate crit- Hayek did not see the state as a purely oppres- ic of redistributionism, Hayek had no use for “social” sive institution, nor did he resent basic welfare pro- anything. Calling it “a weasel word” that “wholly de- grams such as social safety nets or public education. stroys” the meaning of whatever it happens to modify, The libertarian dogmatist Ayn Rand described him as Hayek deemed social justice among the worst of the “an example of our most pernicious enemy” because lot of 160-odd “social” somethings. of his willingness to compromise with the demands “Everybody talks about social justice, but if you of the modern liberal state and its voters. Hayek did, press people to explain to you what they mean by however, understand that Rawlsian ideals break

Commentary 21

Rothman.indd 21 1/16/19 1:40 PM In truth, social-justice advocates aren’t pure Rawlsian theorists, but they are not doctrinal Marxists either. They’re certainly not libertarians. So what are they?

down when they are applied in the real world. Men with the conditions into which they were born? Are are fallible, advantage-seeking political animals, a the less fortunate and the historically “privileged” truth that cannot be theorized away. The veil as Rawls truly equivalent? If we treated them equally, is that envisioned it is an entirely theoretical construct that justice? Or does justice require confiscating benefits, denies essential human nature. perceived to be unearned, from some to give to others? Andrew Lister, a lecturer at Oxford University’s HOUGH THEY MAY BE LOATH to admit it, Centre for the Study of Social Justice, expands on the social-justice advocates agree with Hayek notion that true distributive justice may have to ac- T on one core point: Perfect equality isn’t just count for the luck of the draw: unattainable, it’s undesirable. Like society’s tangible goods, intangible goods such as justice simply can- The rationale for focusing on social positions not be doled out from behind a veil of ignorance is that people will be born into different start- without perpetuating the very injustices we are try- ing points in life, which make it more or less ing to rectify. True justice, social-justice advocates likely that they will be able to succeed. People argue, requires a social reversal. Oppressors must be are born with different levels of innate talent. subjugated and the subjugated must be lifted up. The And assuming that liberty must permit pri- veil would prevent a just society from achieving that vate childrearing in some form, we will never objective. have perfect equality of opportunity. More- Modern social-justice advocates have no inter- over, even if there were perfectly fair equality est in a color-blind society. Nor would they accept of opportunity and no differences in levels of the notion that just institutions can be trusted to innate talent, any economic system involving maximize collective benefit. They are suspicious of the market will involve a substantial element institutions in general, in fact, since those institutions of luck. People who are willing to play by the are invariably the flawed inventions of corruptible rules will suffer unmerited failure; others less men. They are unconvinced that perfect equality is meritorious will win success. . . . Since every- desirable, because such a naive ideal ignores historical one depends on the cooperation of others, we injustices. We must all bear burdens that are passed ought to take advantage of this morally arbi- on to us at birth by our parents. These are obligations trary luck to claim a greater share of what we we cannot shrug off, no matter how hard we try. produce together—not unless this inequality In truth, social-justice advocates aren’t pure will make everyone better off. Rawlsian theorists, but they are not doctrinal Marx- ists either. They’re certainly not libertarians. So what This is an opinion that can be arrived at only by are they? Their theory of justice is rooted in a more those with a powerful aversion to internalizing the les- subjective notion—a hatred of luck. sons of history. Eliminating hereditary claims to title Can institutions be made morally perfect? Can and nobility is one thing; neutralizing less tangible mankind? The answer is, alas, no. So the social-justice benefits based on a subjective assessment of “privi- movement’s intellectual class has largely concluded lege” is something else. Social leveling is predicated that the pursuit of pure equality is not just a waste of on the sacrifice of individual liberty and potential. time, it’s ethically flawed. Indeed, as Lister concedes, “maximizing expected These theorists are content to use the noble opportunity means being willing to accept that some idea of equality as a starting point, but they veer off may have very small chances in life in order that oth- the paths forged by Aristotle, Hume, and Rawls when ers who have already greater chances can have greater individual actions or circumstances should preclude chances still.” one person from receiving the same justice as another For the social-justice left, that is an unaccept- who is more deserving. How can it be just for people able concession. Theirs is a crusade against “brute to enjoy the benefits or suffer the burdens associated luck.” Those who believe in this philosophy and are

22 The Attack on Luck : February 2019

Rothman.indd 22 1/16/19 1:40 PM Gheaus’s particular form of social justice sees society not as an infinitely complex set of interactions and traditions shaped by trial and error over generations but as one big problem to fix.

familiar with the literature on the matter call them- To promote equality of power and inclusion we can, selves “luck egalitarians.” Natural talent, opportunity, for instance, plan towns having in mind the goal of or even personal tastes—these are disparate circum- racial integration or introduce workplace democracy.” stances that must be corrected through social leveling. This is the fatal conceit of the haughty technocrat. “The aim of justice as equality is to eliminate so Gheaus has inadvertently allowed the social- far as it is possible the impact on people’s lives of bad justice mask to fall. Believers in her particular form of luck that falls on them through no fault or choice of social justice see society not as an infinitely complex their own,” writes Richard Arneson of the University set of interactions and traditions shaped by trial and of California at San Diego. As he and other critics of error over generations but as one big problem to fix. luck egalitarianism point out, this kind of forced What’s more, they think they are sharp enough to fix leveling only makes people bitter, ungovernable, and it. If only they had the power to remake the world in unproductive. These circumspect critics of luck call their own image, this would be a just society at long themselves “rational egalitarians.” last. This kind of hubris inevitably gives way to power The Spanish academic Anca Gheaus tries to hunger. smooth over these divisions by identifying how social The pursuit of a purely just, rational, and equal so- goods can be distributed in a way that doesn’t make ciety has preoccupied philosophical minds for millennia the public want to rise up in violent revolution: “To despite the impossibility of ever achieving such a thing. promote equality of status, we could eliminate (espe- By defining justice as a tangible and therefore finite cially early) school selection based on merit and deem- good, social-justice advocates are trapping themselves in phasize quantitative evaluation of pupils and exams. a constricted and ultimately doomed paradigm.q

Commentary 23

Rothman.indd 23 1/16/19 1:40 PM The Case for Growth Why the right’s attack is wrong By James Pethokoukis

ORDON GEKKO MISSED the That’s especially true for working-class Americans. mark with his famous Wall Street The 3.5 percent unemployment rate for Americans monologue about American capi- with only a high-school diploma is the lowest since talism. It is not greed but econom- 2000. Indeed, despite all the debate about income in- ic growth that is, for lack of a bet- equality, earnings have been growing faster for those ter word, good. Growth is right. at the bottom than at the top. Growth works. Growth clarifies, Or look at it this way: In their research paper cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolu- “Productivity and Pay: Is the Link Broken?” Harvard’s tionary G spirit. Growth has marked the upward surge of Anna Stansbury and Lawrence Summers find that mankind. And growth—you mark my words—will save higher productivity growth is associated with higher that malfunctioning corporation called the USA. average and median compensation growth. The econo- This is probably pretty obvious to most Ameri- mists show that if productivity growth had been as fast cans. Strong economic growth means more jobs and from 1973 to 2016 as it was from 1949 to 1973—about higher wages. Just take a look at the current expan- twice as high—median and mean compensation would sion. It has been only moderate as far as the pace of have been around 41 percent higher. growth, but it has been sustained. And month after Yet a growing number of policymakers and pun- month of a growing economy has brought down the dits on the left and right are questioning the primacy unemployment rate to its lowest level since 1969, even of growth as the key objective of national economic as real wages continue to grow for all income levels. policy. Democrats and progressives are focused on new policies to redistribute wealth, such as Medicare James Pethokoukis is the Dewitt Wallace Fellow for all, a federal jobs guarantee, or a universal basic at the American Enterprise Institute and an official income. Meanwhile, Republicans and conservatives, CNBC Contributor. grappling with a president who questions the value

24 February 2019

Pethokoukis.indd 24 1/16/19 1:41 PM of free trade and immigration, have grown publicly Street to Washington. For instance: The Federal Re- skeptical of market capitalism. “The free market has serve’s long-term, real GDP forecast stands at 1.8 per- been sorting it out for a while, and America has been cent, about half the average pace from 1947 to the start losing,” said Vice President Mike Pence. And they have of the Great Recession. And even that reduced pace become skeptical of the core goal of increasing eco- of growth seems a tad too optimistic for JPMorgan, nomic growth. which pegs the economy’s long-term growth potential at 1.5 percent. EADING THE CHARGE among the wonks There are good reasons that the experts seem is Oren Cass, a Manhattan Institute scholar so gloomy. The most important—and, perhaps, most L and former policy director for the 2012 Mitt inescapable—is demographics. The aging of the labor Romney presidential campaign. In his new book, The force, lower birth rates, and a slowing rate of immigra- Once and Future Worker, Cass writes that although tion suggest a slowdown in the growth of the Ameri- “economic growth and rising material living standards can labor force to around 0.5 percent annually going are laudable goals … they by no means guarantee the forward—as compared with roughly 2 percent in the health of a labor market that will meet society’s long- 1960s and 1970s. The U.S. economy expanded at a 4.1 term needs.” percent annual pace during the ’60s—a decade that Growth skeptics’ criticisms range from the today’s nationalist populists look back on with great ahistorical to the utopian. Of course, a fast-rising tide nostalgia. But growth would have been less than 3 of economic growth does not guarantee that all boats percent if the labor force had been growingly as slowly will rise at the same pace or at a pace that society back then as it is currently. deems sufficient. “Guarantee,” after all, is a strong The other big obstacle to faster growth is weak word. Depending on the strength one attributes to productivity, which downshifted just before the Great it, it’s possible nothing can “guarantee” the outcome Recession and has yet to rebound. For the American that some growth critics want: all winners, no losers, economy to grow as fast in the future as it has over- no trade-offs, no disruption. But if by “guarantee” we all since World War II, output per worker will need don’t mean “ensure with ironclad certainty” but only to rise sharply. Indeed, that is a big goal of the 2017 “approximate more closely than any available alterna- Republican-pushed corporate tax cuts. They are sup- tive,” then economic growth remains society’s best bet. posed to increase business investment and eventually Indeed, this very urge to undervalue growth’s benefits productivity growth. But there are no signs that either is the surest sign that growth in America has become a is happening yet, much to the dismay of many conser- victim of its own success. vative economists. The only other hope lies beyond G.K. Chesterton famously noted how modern Washington’s tinkering: The private sector continues types of reformers see institutions or practices and to innovate. Maybe Silicon Valley will eventually come think, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” to the rescue, as innovation in areas such as artificial To which the wise reply, “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away.” Institutions and policies A fast-rising tide of economic that endure decade after decade often growth does not guarantee that all serve a useful purpose even if that pur- pose isn’t immediately apparent, and boats will rise at the same pace or at we should be cautious before shrugging them off as unimportant. Our growth- a pace that society deems sufficient. oriented economic policy is a perfect example. It brings tremendous benefits, yet we now intelligence and robotics eventually spreads through- risk taking it for granted. out the non-tech economy. The history of radical And what an odd time to question the benefits. technological advances, such as electrification, suggest The Obama administration was much derided for that it can take some time before businesses figure out its apparently self-serving claim, made in the 2013 how to effectively employ them. Economic Report of the President, “that in the 21st It can be easy to dismiss all this talk of growth Century, real GDP growth in the United States is likely rates as the abstract muttering of economists far to be permanently slower than it was in earlier eras.” removed from the everyday concerns of the average But it was a perfectly reasonable baseline forecast that American. As a corrective, George Mason economist continues to reflect the economic consensus from Wall Tyler Cowen poses a useful thought experiment in

Commentary 25

Pethokoukis.indd 25 1/16/19 1:41 PM his latest book, Stubborn Attachments. Imagine we cians such as President Trump. And these populist redo U.S. history, he says. “But assume the country’s leaders are pushing the sorts of policies that make a economy had grown one percentage point less each future of slow growth even more likely. year between 1870 and 1990. In that scenario, the Trump looks back to the immediate decades United States of 1990 would be no richer than the after World War II as the golden age of the American Mexico of 1990.” economy. His presidential campaign, for instance, Michael Strain, my colleague at the American made a point of promising the return of mass em- Enterprise Institute, makes a similar point when he ployment in the industrial-age industries of steel and coal. Cass, too, has pointed to those decades as an alternate model of It wasn’t too much globalization and economic growth. As he said dur- economic openness that undermined ing a recent think-tank event: “The period of time when productivity large swaths of the manufacturing growth was really booming most in the American economy was a time economy, but too little. when tax rates were much higher, immigration rates were much low- writes: “Imagine the world in the year 1900. There was er, there was virtually no international trade by the no air travel, no antibiotics, no iPhone, no Amazon standards of the 1920s or today, and there was a much Prime, no modern high school and no air condition- smaller or nonexistent safety net. The idea that what ing....Anyone who played down growth a century ago we currently call the pro-growth agenda is actually wouldn’t have known they were arguing against any what has aligned with high growth isn’t true.” of these things, because none of these growth-enabled That is a wrong-headed interpretation of eco- features of modern life had been invented yet. But they nomic history. While it is true that the so-called gold- would have been putting the existence of all these at en-age era is known for fast economic and productivity risk by stifling, even marginally, the economic engine growth, economists generally do not credit the lack of that allowed for their creation.” trade or immigration. Rather, notes the Congressional Sustained and solid growth is what makes Budget Office in a review of research literature on these advances possible and is what separates the the subject, “the golden age may be more accurately median American today from the median residents interpreted as the full final exploitation of an earlier of the world’s developing economies. Sacrificing a burst of innovations through electrification, subur- tenth of a percentage point here and two tenths there banization, completion and increasing exploitation of to, say, protect favored industries from foreign com- the highway system, and production of consumer ap- petition or levy punitive taxes on obscenely rich en- pliances.” In other words, huge technological advances trepreneurs may seem like a worthwhile trade-off in in the 1920s and 1930s generated benefits for decades. the moment. But because of how growth compounds Unfortunately, those productivity gains, along over time, in the long term such trade-offs aren’t just with America’s industrial superiority over its war- unappealing but inexplicable. As the Nobel laureate ravaged competitors, have created a myth about the in economics Robert Lucas wrote, “once one starts postwar American economy—a myth that populists to think about [exponential growth], it is hard to continue to spread. Yet Fortress America entered the think about anything else.” Marginally slowing down 1970s ill prepared for the inevitable global competition economic growth to achieve other policy goals might as the rest of the world’s advanced economies finally cause little harm to us, but it seems both less fair and recovered. less wise when the welfare of ensuing generations are Both Trump and Cass, therefore, have it back- accounted for. In Strain’s words: “What in the world ward. It wasn’t too much globalization and economic of tomorrow doesn’t yet exist? We need growth in openness that undermined large swaths of the manu- order to find the answer, both for ourselves, and for facturing economy, but too little. As Adrian Wooldridge posterity.” of the Economist and former Federal Reserve Chair- It is strange that intellectuals are dismissing the man Alan Greenspan write in Capitalism in America: importance of economic growth at just the point when “The 1970s was the decade when Americans finally had it is becoming harder to generate—and doubly weird to grapple with the fact that it was losing its leadership after a long stretch of sluggish growth that has almost in an ever widening range of industries. Though the certainly played a role in the surge of populist politi- best American companies such as General Electric

26 The Case for Growth : February 2019

Pethokoukis.indd 26 1/16/19 1:41 PM and Pfizer powered ahead, a striking number treaded sides improving material conditions, growth improves water. They had succeeded during the long postwar moral ones as well. boom not because they had any particular merit, but Friedman notes how sustained growth “shapes because Europe and Japan were still recovering from the social, political and, ultimately, the moral char- World War Two and they collapsed at the first sniff of acter of a people” and “more often than not fosters competition.” greater opportunity, tolerance of diversity, social The last thing the American economy needs mobility, commitment to fairness, and dedication to today is a reduction in competitive intensity, whether democracy.” Slow growth, on the other hand, leads to achieved by shielding industries with tariffs or keep- ugly consequences, especially if voters begin to feel it is ing out the immigrants that help grow the workforce inevitable. In times of stagnation, economic policy tilts and provide expertise to key industries, especially toward dividing up a fixed pie, rather than enlarging technology. Nearly half of our “unicorn companies,” everyone’s share. It could mean a society that is less another name for U.S. start-ups worth over $1 billion, willing to entertain the benefits of international trade, were founded by immigrants. Immigrant scientists more hostile toward immigration and immigrants, and entrepreneurs play a disproportionate role in driv- and more comfortable with regulating business. ing the tech progress necessary for sustained produc- In fact, “could” is putting it mildly. The tariffs, tivity growth. Forty percent of Fortune 500 companies legislative efforts to reduce immigration, and frequent have a first- or second-generation immigrant founder. threats to regulate America’s most successful compa- Immigrants may compete with other Americans, but nies, such as Google and Amazon, already show some they also employ them. of the consequences of the sluggish recovery from the Great Recession—and this from what is supposed to be HE CRITICS OF A growth-above-all approach America’s pro-growth party. might grant that no other national policy is Growth is, and remains, good. Growth is right, T better at generating material prosperity. But, staving off a zero-sum politics defined more by group they say, life requires more than mere materialism. conflict than productive cooperation. Growth works, We crave community, beauty, and a certain degree of improving everyone’s standard of living, if not always stability. It is this objection that Harvard’s Benjamin equally, at least steadily. Growth clarifies, exposing Friedman sought to address in his 2006 book, The business to competition and preventing industrial Moral Consequences of Economic Growth. True, capi- calcification. Growth signifies the evolutionary and talism and the creative destruction that drive it can upward surge of mankind, evident in everything from disrupt traditional cultures or degrade the environ- modern medicine to interstellar space travel. ment. And from the Old Testament to the present, men And a policy geared toward increasing economic have fretted over usury’s effects on one’s soul (today we growth—pursued attentively and unapologetically— might say finance’s effects on one’s morals). But growth will save the United States of America. All other na- doesn’t only erode individual and societal morality. Be- tional economic strategies are but pale imitations.q

Commentary 27

Pethokoukis.indd 27 1/16/19 1:41 PM The Bertie Factor An affecting series of novels features an unlikely champion of maleness By Charles Sykes

HE WAR OVER BOYNESS has been gram of aggressive gender neutrality. Smith offers up playing out for years, not merely on a stinging takedown not merely of a style of parental college campuses and workplaces, hothousing, but of psychotherapy, feminism, the at- but also in elementary schools, tack on masculinity, and social-justice hectoring. where boys find themselves sur- All of that is personified in Bertie’s mother, Irene, rounded by trip wires of grievance, a bottomless well of politically correct attitudes and in a society where the rules seem to prejudices. She insists on imposing her worldview on be fluid and the struggle decidedly one-sided. everyone with whom she comes in contact, but most ThisT is Bertie Pollock’s world. He is a precocious especially on poor Bertie, who simply wants to play six-year-old of distinctive sweetness, thoughtfulness, with other boys, join the Boy Scouts, go camping and honesty, and kindness, whose longing for a normal fishing, and someday perhaps get a Swiss Army knife. boyhood is more poignant than threatening. All of If Smith had addressed the issues of gender which makes him the unlikeliest of protagonists in our head-on (like Jordan Peterson), he would undoubtedly ongoing gender war. have been anathematized. But by making Bertie Pol- “Boys have had it, Bertie,” a six-year-old girl lec- lock his unlikely hero, Smith has been able to insinuate tures him. “They’re finished. There’s no point in being his pointed critique into the popular culture with un- a boy anymore. Everybody knows that.” expected results. In the hands of another author, this Bertie’s creator, Alexander McCall Smith, is best might have come off as hostile to women, but Smith’s known for his No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, sympathy for his female characters is palpable (his which is set in Botswana. But Smith’s sharpest and detective series centers on the formidable Precious Ra- most unexpected works are 12 novels (so far) set in his motswe, one of the great characters in contemporary native Scotland that are an extended meditation on crime fiction). the themes of masculinity and freedom, in which the protagonist is not an action hero but rather a small HE ASTOUNDINGLY PROLIFIC Smith has boy. published 97 novels for children and adults The first in Smith’s 44 Scotland Street series was T since 1980. Born in what is now Zimbabwe, he published in 2005; the most recent, A Time of Love and has served as a professor of medical law at universities Tartan, in 2017. The series portrays Bertie’s struggle to from Botswana to Dublin. He is surprised that Bertie free himself from his insufferable mother and her pro- has “become so important a character,” he has said. “I certainly did not imagine that he would acquire Charles Sykes is the editor in chief of the Bulwark. so many supporters—or sympathizers.” Wherever

28 February 2019

SYKES.indd 28 1/16/19 3:12 PM Bertie yearns desperately for the day when he will turn 18, an age of liberation when he will be free to wear kilts, have a pocket knife, and move from Edinburgh to Glasgow.

he goes, he has found that “people are more anxious In Bertie’s mind Glasgow was some sort of about Bertie than they are about any of my other promised land, a place where freedom ex- fictional characters. They want him to find freedom. isted, a place free of psychotherapy and Ital- They want him to escape.” ian conversazuione; a place where every boy, Irene is fascinated to the point of obsession by or almost every boy, possessed a Swiss Army the works of progressive child psychologist Melanie penknife. It was the shining city upon the hill Klein, and she has written an article for the journal that was denied him. Progressive Motherhood in which she sets out her objectives for what would become “the Bertie Project.” But that freedom always seems remote to Bertie. “A boy’s best friend is his mummy,” Irene assures him For her, the Bertie Project was based on one day. “Not only when he’s a boy, like you, but for the notion of the malleability of masculine the rest of his life too.” Writes Smith: “Bertie looked character. She wanted Bertie to be free of the dismayed. Could this possibly be true? If it were, the stereotypes of gender. She wanted him to be in future certainly looked bleak.” touch with his inner girl. She wanted him to Irene is a depressingly familiar figure, desperate- view Swiss Army penknifes as instruments of ly anxious not only to have the right political attitudes, oppression…. The possession of a Swiss Army but to be seen as having them. She despises the middle penknife was a statement proclaiming, I am class, the church, the Boy Scouts, and the Scottish kilt, a boy. Irene saw all that quite clearly, and she which she regards as reactionary: “The point is that would not allow it. It was as simple as that. dressing up in kilts hardly solves the problems of the day, does it?” His father, Stuart, is sympathetic with Bertie’s Her concern for ideological purity and appear- plight but largely ineffectual. And Irene is relentless ances extends to the newspapers she allows into the and passionate in imposing her regime of psychother- house. The left-wing Guardian is must reading, while apy, yoga classes, and lessons in conversational Italian the more conservative Telegraph is for her a symbol of and the saxophone. reaction. After Bertie sets fire to his father’s copy of the Her plan for Bertie includes “a broad and fulfill- Guardian, Stuart tries to reassure Bertie that he didn’t ing program of intellectual stimulation introducing care.“I don’t need to read the newspaper,” he says. “I him at a very early stage (four months) to the pos- know what it would have said anyway.” sibilities of theatre, music, and the plastic arts.” This Irene worries that Bertie might pick up the hint begins when Bertie is in utero; as an infant, Irene that the Guardian was predictable. “That would never plays him tapes of Dante’s Divine Comedy. We are do,” she lectures Stuart. “And he should certainly not told, in fact, that Bertie had consumed “not only the develop ideas like that before he went to the Steiner complete works of Roald Dahl for children, but also School, where The Guardian was read out each day at half of Norman Lebrecht’s book on Mahler and almost school assembly.” She is even more upset when Stuart seventy pages of Miranda Carter’s biography of the late brings a copy of the Telegraph home. “Just think for a Anthony Blunt.” moment. What if Bertie read it?” she says. “You know he Bertie is also exposed to Freud’s account of Little picks things up and reads them. Do you want his mind to Hans and the Wolf Man, “who struck Bertie as being an be poisoned?... And what if somebody saw you carrying entirely reasonable boy, who had just as little need of that paper? What would they think?” Stuart capitulates. analysis as he himself had.” Irene is also obsessed with psychology and lit- Bertie yearns desperately for the day when he erary criticism. She runs a book group “composed of will turn 18, an age of liberation when he will be free to eight like-minded readers, all interested in psychologi- wear kilts, have a pocket knife, and move from Edin- cal issues,” which discusses “that strange and rather burgh to Glasgow. sinister world that is the world of Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin.” Irene explains that author A.A.

Commentary 29

SYKES.indd 29 1/16/19 2:20 PM In Smith’s work, there is usually some sort of sympathy or redemption for even his most flawed characters, but his treatment of Irene is a notable exception.

Milne “was the product of a typically repressed and men too.” authoritarian Edwardian household” and that Pooh is “Yet we’re expected to deny it. We’re so a battered teddy bear because “physical abuse at the busy trying to promote the notion that there hands of all-powerful adults was the lot of Edwardian are no differences…” children. The bear is now reduced to pathetic depen- Patty took this up. “Thereby ignoring the dence on the boy, and must accept the boy’s authority evidence of biology. Men and women are dif- in all things.” She insists that Bertie undergo psycho- ferent–they just are. …” therapy with a quack named Dr. Fairbairn. After Irene “And have you noticed something else, gives birth to his baby brother, who is named Ulysses, Patty? Have you noticed how people think it’s Bertie notices something odd. “Mummy,’ he asks, all right to run down men? To say that men “don’t you think that Ulysses looks a lot like Dr. Fair- are dim and insensitive? That women are far bairn. Haven’t you noticed? Do you think Dr. Fairbairn more competent at all sorts of things?...” could be Ulysses’s daddy?” “Oh, I’ve noticed that,” said Patty. “People All of this is merely background to Irene’s de- think they can say anything derogatory about termination to “degender” Bertie by robbing him not men–things they’d never dare say about only of his freedom but his identity as a boy. women–and rightly so. It’s called gender When she says that she is keen “for him to be defamation.…” able to see the world through female eyes,” his father, “Poor men,” signed Elspeth. “Discrimi- Stuart, attempts to push back: “I’m surprised you nated against. Condescended to. Labelled as don’t make him wear a dress.… Do you want him to incompetent.” grow up rejecting masculine identity?” “All the things that used to happen to Irene regards the question as shallow and of- women,” murmured Patty. fensive. “But now that you ask,” she says, “the answer is: what is wrong with a rejection of masculinity? Is In Smith’s work, there is usually some sort of there anything intrinsically good in being masculine?” sympathy or redemption for even his most flawed char- She is trying to make sure their son “grows up adapted acters, but his treatment of Irene is a notable exception. to the gender-neutral world that is being constructed Smith relentlessly satirizes her snobbery, smugness, around us. That means that a lot of old-fashioned casual bigotries, hypocrisies, and smothering tyranny ideas are going to have to be scrapped.” over Bertie. Indeed, after years of browbeating, her Irene forbids Bertie from using playgrounds long-suffering husband, Stuart, comes to a startling and paints his bedroom “a reassuring pink.” Bertie is realization: Irene is not merely an overbearing mother appalled, and when Irene tells him that he should feel and obnoxious ideologue; she is a mini-Mussolini. lucky to have a space like this, he answers: “Other boys have different spaces. They have trains and things.” That was what Irene stood for. She stood for But, Irene insists, they are not as lucky as he intolerance and domination. She stood for is because “we’re giving you something very differ- those people—those nameless people, who ent, Bertie. We’re giving you the gift of freedom from would dictate to others. She was a tyrant, just gender roles.” This does not feel like “freedom” in any as all those people who crushed others into sense that Bertie understands it. Nor does her denial silence were tyrants. of the objective reality of gender identity, which is the And then a terrible realization dawned on subtext of the war between Irene and Bertie. Stuart.… He was married to a fascist. In the 11th book in the series, Bertie Project, He felt immediately ashamed.… But it Smith has two characters, Patty and Elspeth, discuss was true: Irene was a fascist. She wanted so the ongoing campaign against maleness. many of the things that fascists wanted–the same powerful state, the same unanimity of Patty smiled, “Yes, boys are different. And opinion and purpose, the same imposition of

30 The Bertie Factor : February 2019

SYKES.indd 30 1/16/19 2:20 PM Bertie wakes up filled with hope. But Irene insists on giving her son gender-neutral gifts. The first present she has picked out is a ‘Junior UN Peacekeeping kit.’

ideology, the same suppression of free debate that those grubby bullies wanted. “You see,” said Irene. “Jo can have all sorts of adven- tures helping people. Isn’t that nice, Bertie?” Inevitably, there is a crisis as Irene’s compulsive Bertie is again polite, but he “was thinking of correctness clashes with Bertie’s aspirations, and it where he could hide Jo so that nobody should see her. comes on Bertie’s long delayed seventh birthday (he He was thinking about how he could cut her hair off remained six for a rather extended time in Smith’s so that she might pass for a boy doll, like Ken.” The series). humiliation is complete when his obnoxious school- Bertie wakes up filled with hope. He is not yet 18, mates discover Jo. when he will be able to free himself from his mother, Although Stuart cannot bring himself to stand but he thinks that maybe he’s old enough to finally get up to Irene, he agrees to help Bertie throw the doll a fishing rod or a Swiss Army knife. But Irene insists away in an act of male bonding and defiance. To- on giving him gender-neutral gifts. The first present gether they toss it into the River Leith, only to have she has picked out is a “Junior UN Peacekeeping Kit.” it retrieved by a dog. They then agree to donate the The instruction book explains: gender-neutral action figure to a charity shop, despite the fact that Jo has a canine tooth puncture where her A fine gift for those who wish to avoid mili- mouth used to be. taristic play (Cowboys and Indians, soldiers, For both Stuart and Bertie, it is a moment of em- etc.) Children become UN peacekeepers with powerment. But their luck gets even better when Irene these handy blue UN armbands, pacifica- wins a contest to travel to Dubai, where after a series tion leaflets, and pretend maps. Hours of of misunderstandings she is mistaken for the wife of a constructive fun for children aged 5 to 10. No Bedouin leader and ends up in a sheik’s harem in the small parts. desert and forced to remain for several weeks. Irene is unharmed and forms a book group, but her absence Bertie is polite. means liberation for seven-year-old Bertie. He is able to eat pizza and watch television, and “Thank you,” said Bertie quietly. He had there is at least one rugby match in his future. He is also noticed that there was no Swiss Army Knife able to go camping with one of his new friends, which he included. regards as “good fortune of an utterly overwhelming na- ture.” And he is able to have a belated Irene-less birthday But there is another gift, in a smaller box. party, with boys and actual games. Instead of carrots and other mandated healthy foods, he has Italian sausages, Bertie took the box, his small hands shaking haggis, smoked salmon, ice cream topped with chocolate as he unwrapped it. sauce, and a “large sickly cake, dyed orange and green.” “It’s a doll,” he said, his voice so small as to Irene does eventually return, at least for a while. be almost inaudible. But for the first time, Bertie is free. At his party, his “Not a doll, carissimo,” said Irene. “It’s a friend, the artist Angus Lord, reads him a poem about play figure.” kindness, hope, courage, and Bertie’s deepest longing. Bertie took the doll out of the box. She had long blonde hair and sort of jumpsuit in So what do I wish for you? green.… He looked at the box and read: “This Freedom? I imagine is Jo, our gender-neutral friend. Jo can do all You know all about that sorts of things! Watch her fix that jeep (not Even if so far you’ve had to contemplate it supplied)! Watch her carry out mountain res- from a distance… cues! Watch her care for others! There’s noth- ing that Jo cannot do!” It’s a worthy dream for any boy.q

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SYKES.indd 31 1/16/19 2:20 PM Politics & Ideas

The Glow-Worm

Churchill: supremely qualified to write a life volume. Nearly all remain in print. Walking with Destiny of the man who helped the world In addition, he wrote many hun- By Andrew Roberts by standing up to Hitler when all dreds if not thousands of articles Viking, 1,152 pages seemed lost. And he has justified for newspapers and magazines and his qualifications with his wonder- was one of the most highly paid Reviewed by ful, masterly Churchill: Walking journalists in the world. John Steele Gordon with Destiny. Not the least of his literary gifts As Roberts makes clear in this was his wit and talent for repartee, HE CATALOG of the well-rounded and by no means honed in the rough-and-tumble New York Public Li- hagiographic biography, what is House of Commons. Churchill is brary lists no fewer perhaps most remarkable about among the few who have had books than 1,140 books un- Churchill is that, had he never set of quotations devoted solely to der the subject head- foot in the House of Commons, he himself. Of course, like Mark Twain ing T “Winston Churchill.” Do we would still be remembered today and Yogi Berra, there are a lot of need another? If it’s a biography by more than 50 years after his death famous quotes misattributed to Andrew Roberts using many hith- in 1965. For Churchill was far more Churchill, and Roberts faithfully erto unavailable sources (such as than a politician, however great. points them out, to the reader’s King George VI’s diary), the answer Only two writers of nonfiction have disappointment. is an emphatic yes. Roberts, a Com- ever won the Nobel Prize for Lit- While an aristocrat to his fin- mentary contributor, is the best- erature. Churchill is one of them. gertips, Churchill was never in the selling author of numerous histo- (Bertrand Russell is the other.) His least a snob and had a singular gift ries and biographies, including The four-volume biography of his an- for friendship. He was notably pro- Storm of War; Napoleon: a Life; cestor the first duke of Marlbor- Semitic, with many close Jewish and Masters and Commanders: ough is universally regarded as an friends. He also had many friends How Four Titans Won the War in unsurpassed masterpiece of the bi- in Britain’s homosexual com- the West, 1941–1945. Thus he was ographer’s art, and has been called munity, including Eddie Marsh, “the greatest historical work of the who was his private secretary and John Steele Gordon, a con- 20th century.” In the course of his close associate for decades. When tributor to Commentary’s blog, is long life, Churchill wrote no fewer Churchill first offered him the job, the author of An Empire of Wealth. than 14 books, many of them multi- Marsh was hesitant and asked a

32 February 2019

Politics&Ideas.indd 32 1/16/19 1:42 PM mutual friend for her advice. “The fantry, much to his father’s disgust. first time you meet Winston,” she Except But out of Sandhurst, Churchill told him, “you see all his faults, and i spent the next five years leading an the rest of your life you spend in for a adventurous life as both a war cor- discovering his virtues.” respondent and soldier and writing Winston Churchill was born No- short period in three well-received books about vember 30, 1874, in the splendor the early 1920s, campaigns he was on. He later re- of Blenheim Palace, the seat of the called this period in My Early Life, a dukes of Marlborough. His father, Churchill would bestselling memoir and still highly Lord Randolph Churchill, was the be a member readable today. He served in Cuba, younger son of the seventh duke. the Northwest Frontier Province of His mother was the famously beau- of Parliament India, Egypt, and the Sudan (where tiful Jennie Jerome, daughter of for the rest of he took part in the last great cav- a New York financier. It was one alry charge in British history at the of the earliest of the transatlantic his life. But he battle of Omdurman) and in South marriages between British aristo- didn’t stay a Africa during the Boer War. There crats and American wealth, and it he was captured by the Boers and profoundly affected Churchill’s em- Conservative for put in a prisoner-of-war camp. He brace of “the English-Speaking Peo- long. He crossed made a daring escape, and his news- ples,” whose history would be his paper dispatches about it made him last major work, in four volumes. the floor in 1904 famous at home. Even by the standards of the Vic- and became a His physical courage was always torian upper class, Churchill‘s par- notable, as was his propensity for ents were neglectful. They seldom Liberal. getting into accidents. He fell 30 visited him at school, despite often feet out of a tree when at school, piteous pleas from him to do so, and dislocated his shoulder docking at their infrequent letters to him were Bombay and causing permanent usually filled with criticism. It was When a friend pointed out, in injury, survived a plane crash in his nanny, Elizabeth Everest, who 1906, that Churchill had not read 1919, and in 1931 was hit by a New gave him the unqualified love that Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale,” York taxi, an accident he was lucky to all children need to grow up. When the friend reported that “the next survive. He was in the hospital for a “Woom” died in 1895, Churchill time I met him, he had learned week. Typically, he took advantage of paid for her gravestone and for the not merely this, but all the odes the situation, writing an article, “My upkeep of her grave for the rest of of Keats by heart—and he recited New York Misadventure,” for which his life. Personal loyalty was among them to me mercilessly from start he was paid a princely £500 (about his many great qualities. to finish, sparing me not a syllable!” $35,000 in today’s money). Churchill’s father thought his Randolph’s harsh predictions In 1900, still only 25, Churchill son was at best “second and third and aloofness instilled in Churchill was elected to Parliament as a Con- rate,” and would amount to noth- a ferocious, lifelong need to im- servative. Except for a short period ing. To be sure, he had evidence, press him, even long after his fa- in the early 1920s, he would be a as Churchill’s school grades were ther’s death in 1895, but it did not member for the rest of his life. But mediocre at best and he was nearly give him any sense of inferiority. he didn’t stay a Conservative for always in disciplinary trouble. But Indeed, he had no doubt whatever long. Disagreeing with the party’s Churchill was a classic autodidact. that he was destined for greatness, economic and social policies, he He had little interest in mastering hence Roberts’s subtitle “Walking crossed the floor in 1904 and be- Latin verbs and got poor grades with Destiny.” “We are all worms,” came a Liberal. When the Liberal as a result (and his French was fa- Churchill told his close friend Vio- Party began to collapse in the early mously idiosyncratic). But he read let Asquith, “but I do believe that I 1920s, Churchill returned to the voraciously in history, literature, am a glow-worm.” Conservative Party. He noted that and science. He also developed at It took him three tries to get into “anyone can rat, but it takes a cer- school a memory of astonishing Sandhurst, Britain’s military acad- tain ingenuity to re-rat.” capacity that would serve him well emy, and he had to join the cavalry, In 1908 he married Clementine in later life. rather than the more prestigious in- Hozier. It would be a happy mar-

Commentary 33

Politics&Ideas.indd 33 1/16/19 1:42 PM riage that lasted 55 years and pro- duced five children—four daugh- ters (one of whom died at age three, to Churchill’s great distress) and a Intellectual son, Randolph, who would have a difficult relation with his parents (and of whom Roberts does not approve). The year they were wed Lives Matter was the first Churchill spent in the cabinet, the youngest member in more than 40 years. Paving the Way for Reagan: tions between our scribblings and The particulars of Churchill’s po- The Influence of Conservative high acts of state. In this spirit we litical career, which was marked by Media on US Foreign Policy can welcome Paving the Way for many ups and downs, need not con- By Laurence Jurdem Reagan: The Influence of Conserva- cern us here. What does concern us University Press of Kentucky, tive Media on US Foreign Policy, by is his moral and intellectual courage 280 pages the historian Laurence Jurdem. in opposing, alone of all major Brit- Jurdem takes in view Commen- ish politicians, the policy of appeas- Reviewed by tary, National Review, and Hu- ing Hitler in the 1930s. He was out of Joshua Muravchik man Events and recapitulates their the government for those years, and stances from the mid-1960s until most people thought he was finished IKE MOST OTHER 1980 on the Vietnam War, détente, as a major figure in British politics. people, those of us arms control, the anti-American But when Hitler proved Churchill who write for intel- turn of the UN, the Panama Canal right, he had to be brought back, as lectual journals want Treaty, the struggle over Rhodesia/ First Lord of the Admiralty and to believe that what Zimbabwe, and the OPEC oil em- then, amid the military disasters of Lwe do is important—even if the size bargo, with cursory references to the spring of 1940, as prime min- of our readership is dwarfed by the odd domestic issue. He argues ister. At last at No. 10, he used his many outlets of popular culture. that these writings helped shape extraordinary powers of oratory to Much of contemporary exploration the views of Ronald Reagan. In his rally the British nation to hold on. of ideas about the good, the just, peroration, Jurdem recollects Rea- When, in 1941, Hitler attacked Rus- and the practical occurs in the pag- gan’s final address to the nation’s sia and the United States entered es we fill. About this we are confi- voters on the eve of the 1980 elec- the European conflict, he knew dent. But does it really matter? tion. Invoking the editors of these Britain was safe. How, if at all, do our rarified de- three journals, Jurdem writes: There have been few lives as bates affect the broader world? Oc- “Watching Reagan [that] evening long, momentous, and wide-rang- casionally, the evidence is obvious, [they] believed that they saw the ing as that of Sir Winston Churchill, as when Daniel Patrick Moynihan right man to deliver the script that author, adventurer, orator, wit, or Jeane Kirkpatrick is named to could revive the fortunes of the na- painter, animal lover, friend, and represent the United States before tion. It was a script they knew well, politician. Andrew Roberts’s mas- the United Nations on the strength because they had written it.” terful, supremely readable biog- of an essay in Commentary. But To Jurdem’s credit, his own ideo- raphy has a text 982 pages long. It much of the time, we take it on faith logical leanings, whatever they may could hardly have been shorter and that the space we inhabit is not a be, do not reveal themselves except told so extraordinary a story so well. mere echo chamber. insofar as one might suppose that Let Roberts have the last word: Thus, it brings joy to our hearts the choice of subject and its treat- Churchill’s “hero, John Churchill, when a scholar traces the connec- ment in a mostly non-pejorative Duke of Marlborough, won great manner, imply a measure of sym- battles and built Blenheim Palace. Joshua Muravchik is a long- pathy. How large a measure is not His other hero, Napoleon, won time contributor to Commentary clear. Disappointingly, however, his even more battles and built an em- and the author of Heaven on Earth: grasp of the events and debates of pire. Winston Churchill did better The Rise, Fall, and Afterlife of Social- the time is not steady. The reader than either of them: the battles he ism (a new edition of the 2002 book) who lived through it will pause of- won saved liberty.”q to be released by Encounter in April. ten trying to recognize them.

34 Politics & Ideas : February 2019

Politics&Ideas.indd 34 1/16/19 1:42 PM For example, he mentions the against OPEC’s 1973 oil boycott, 1969 riots in Berkeley over the The Jurdem explains that it “reflected so-called People’s Park, in which i the shortsighted conservative view hundreds, perhaps thousands, of most that any nonwhite or non-Chris- students and miscellaneous bohe- disappointing tian group of people was ignorant mians were confronted by police and inferior.” This remarkable ac- wielding batons and sometimes thing about cusation of racism and religious firing birdshot. After setting the Paving the Way bigotry is evidenced not by any scene, Jurdem offers only one quote from the magazine itself but quote, this from National Review: for Reagan is not by a citation of an obscure and ap- “For the first time the silent major- parently hostile history of Ameri- ity stood up.” It is hard to imagine any particular can conservatism published by an that the author of this quote was misconstruction. equally obscure British outlet with referring to either the rioters or the the earmarks of a vanity press. police. So then to whom? Jurdem It is instead the One more example: Jurdem leaves us guessing. book’s failure writes that “conservatives were With respect to the nuclear- discouraged by what they believed arms-control talks, Jurdem writes, to capture the to be the Carter administration’s “The conservative publications atmosphere of lackluster foreign policy.” “Discour- contended that only by contin- aged”? “Lackluster”? Kirkpatrick ued pressure throughout the bar- the time. accused Carter of favoring our gaining process would the United enemies over our friends. Jack- States gain an advantage over the son said Carter’s policy amounted Soviet Union in the Cold War.” In to “appeasement,” and Moynihan truth, these publications objected concluded that our Soviet counter- called it, at least in the UN, a “total to the terms of SALT I because it parts did not regard a war between and squalid failure.” formally accorded the Soviet Union the superpowers as “unthinkable,” The most disappointing thing numerical superiority in nuclear as American leaders did. about Paving the Way for Reagan is missiles. The publications rallied And Jurdem several times miss- not any particular misconstruction around an amendment offered by es the nuances of his subjects’ but its failure to capture the atmo- Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson arguments. He says that Jeane sphere of the time. The civil rights to the terms of ratification, which Kirkpatrick’s 1979 Commentary revolution of the 1950s and 1960s required that future agreements be essay, “Dictatorships and Double brought America face to face with shorn of this imbalance—not that Standards,” explained “how much its own gravest sins. The shock pro- they be tilted in America’s favor. more complicated it was to remove foundly influenced the attitudes of Jurdem writes that the so-called left-wing autocracies than right- a younger generation that had no Team B created by the CIA in the wing ones, as the leftist principles direct memory of the heroism of 1970s to provide a second opinion were so deeply ingrained within World War II. This was followed about the Soviet military “painted the society.” While she did make at once by, or rather overlapped a much more formidable picture of the point that Communist regimes with, a grinding war in Vietnam the Soviet nuclear arsenal than had had not been overthrown, this, that claimed more than 50,000 U.S. previously been portrayed.” But Kirkpatrick said, was due to their lives in a lost cause. By the time the the purpose of Team B was not to greater repressiveness, in part be- last helicopter lifted off the roof describe or weigh the Soviet arse- cause their “principles,” far from of our Saigon embassy, Americans nal, the composition of which was being ingrained, were artificially were sick of foreign engagements, stipulated as part of the exercise— grafted. Contrary to Jurdem’s un- doubtful about the wisdom of try- based on what our satellites and derstanding, she explicitly pointed ing to resist Communism, and gen- other instruments of espionage out that traditional authoritar- erally down on their country. could observe. Rather, the task ian regimes, i.e., most right-wing Over the next half decade, the was to draw inferences about the dictatorships, tended to be more magazines Jurdem writes about, as strategic thinking of Soviet rulers congruent with societal traditions. well as a miscellany of other small that could be deduced from their To take another example, cit- publications, writers, thinkers, arsenal. Rightly or wrongly, Team B ing a jeremiad in National Review and political figures, generated a

Commentary 35

Politics&Ideas.indd 35 1/16/19 1:42 PM counterculture to the countercul- restoring America’s pride at home society through local organizing ture—or rather to what had been and its strength abroad, a mis- and quotidian life, warning that the counterculture of the 1960s sion he largely achieved. This is a without a focus on how people that was by now regnant. This new remarkable story. Jurdem aims at live, the organizations they cre- insurgent movement was crowned it but does not quite hit the mark, ate can atrophy or become ends with success when Reagan won even if in one sense it strokes our in themselves. Flacks’s new book, the presidency on a platform of egos.q unlike his earlier one, is frankly au- tobiographical and hopes to point the way forward by adducing the Flackses’ life stories. Making History Making Blin- Too Many tzes is divided into three parts. The first recounts the authors’ Communist backgrounds and their disillusionment with the Commu- Communists nist Party USA. The second deals with their involvement in the early years of the New Left in Ann Arbor in the Kitchen and Chicago and their unease with the drift of SDS. The final section is a triumphalist narrative of their Making History Making participatory democracy, the Mani- efforts to build “socialism in one Blintzes: How Two Red Diaper festo’s guiding principle. An un- city”—Santa Barbara, California, Babies Found Each Other and abashed optimist, he dismissed the where Dick* taught for more than Discovered America revival of conservatism in the 1980s 30 years. Each author writes sepa- By Mickey Flacks as a mere symptom of “false con- rate sections, although his is the and Dick Flacks sciousness,” the process, according most prominent voice. Rutgers University Press, 512 pages to Marxists, by which the working Both Mickey and Dick Flacks class is deluded into supporting the were born into Communist fami- Reviewed by Harvey Klehr ruling class. Flacks called on radi- lies. Mickey’s mother was a fervent cals to resist authority, focus on the Bolshevik in 1917, and, even after HIRTY YEARS AGO, everyday lives of Americans, and accompanying her family to Ameri- Richard Flacks wrote demand more democracy in ca in 1922, she toyed with returning Making History: The schools, workplaces, and neighbor- to the USSR. In fact, she lived in American Left and hoods. Reflecting the dominance of Moscow with her husband and old- the American Mind. the American two-party system, he est son for nearly two years in the FlacksT had been a leader of the Stu- laid out a strategy to capture the 1930s before going back to Ameri- dents for a Democratic Society Democratic Party and turn it into a ca. Even though she admitted late (SDS), a 1960s leftist activist orga- progressive stronghold. To those in life that she might have faced nization that had folded almost 15 not on the left at the time, it seemed “difficulties” if she had remained years earlier. He had helped to an exercise in futility. in the Soviet Union, she apparently write SDS’s 1962 Port Huron mani- Well, Flacks is back. And, with never abandoned her Communist festo, a document widely credited some justification, he’s even more faith. And her life revolved around with inaugurating the New Left. In optimistic than before. In Making Communist fraternal and social my review of Making History for History Making Blintzes, Flacks, institutions. Dick’s parents were Commentary, I noted that Flacks a retired sociology professor at New York school teachers and as- had maintained his enthusiasm for University of California, Santa Bar- similated Jews who were deeply bara, and his wife, Mickey, ar- involved in the Communist-domi- Harvey Klehr’s newest book, gue that the selfish, individualistic nated teachers’ union. The Millionaire Was a Soviet Mole: business ethic of capitalism is in The Twisted Life of David Karr, will retreat in America and around * The casual shortening is Flacks’s. In Making History, his first name appeared be published this spring by Encoun- the Western world. The title is in- as Richard. In Making History Making ter Books. tended to describe how to change Blintzes, it’s Dick.

36 Politics & Ideas : February 2019

Politics&Ideas.indd 36 1/16/19 1:42 PM Both Mickey and Dick joined as a lab technician, Dick became the New Left’s descent into revo- Communist youth groups and at- friendly with Tom Hayden, editor lutionary madness and violence. tended Communist camps where of the student paper. While not yet While they were active in anti-war the kids sang with Pete Seeger and a member of SDS, Dick attended activity in Ann Arbor, Dick was fo- idolized Paul Robeson. Growing its famous Port Huron convention cused on finishing his dissertation. up during the “Red Scare,” they in 1962. The defining struggle at In 1964, he was hired by the sociol- felt alienated from an American the meeting involved SDS’s at- ogy department at the University society that was, as Mickey puts titude toward Communists. Mi- of Chicago. Somewhat older than it, “capitalistic and corrupt, racist, chael Harrington, representing its many of their SDS compatriots, as anti-Semitic (or, if Jewish, self- parent group, the stalwart anti- a married couple they were also hating), lowbrow, anti-intellectual, Communist League for Industrial more responsible and “grown-up.” and generally and profoundly evil.” Democracy, argued against allow- They refused to let politics con- Dick’s parents lost their jobs after ing Communists to join. Dick was sume their lives and would leave refusing to testify before com- primarily responsible for language meetings to go to football games, mittees investigating Communist in the statement that differentiated earning them the scorn of some influence among teachers (but SDS from the Communist Old Left friends. But Dick wanted an aca- both found employment in private while rejecting anti-Communist demic job, not one focused on the schools). “loyalty oaths.” It “seemed most movement. And their professed at- As a student at Brooklyn Col- unreasonable—and even immoral,” titudes seem to support this. They lege, Dick hid his Communist he writes, “that individuals, despite claim to have believed that angry loyalties and joined the Young agreeing with an organization’s attacks on America as racist and Democrats, eventually becoming aims, could be purged or excluded genocidal were counterproductive. its president. A fellow Communist from it simply because of some Mickey disdained feminists who served as president of Students for suspicion about their associates.” hated and denounced men. They Democratic Action (the student af- Mickey rejoiced at wording in the were both uncomfortable with talk filiate of Americans for Democratic manifesto that would later enable of revolution and glorification of Action). To Dick, such deception a pluralistic anti-war movement, Third World revolutionaries. Dur- was not infiltration, despite the one that welcomed people who did ing the demonstrations at the 1968 rules excluding Communists from not want to support the Vietcong Democratic National Convention, membership in both groups, but an but also allowed those who waved they stayed at arm’s length from effort “to revitalize these organiza- Vietcong flags to participate in the violence. tions.” Dick and Mickey began to demonstrations. But despite these eminently sen- harbor doubts about the CPUSA It turned out that welcoming sible views, they are quite reticent following Khrushchev’s famous Communists into SDS led to the about how SDS was transformed, secret 1956 speech condemning capture of the organization by the blaming a few younger leaders but Stalin. Although they are vague on Progressive Labor Party by 1968. professing little concern. After all, the timing, it appears that around Devoted to the principles of Mao- as an academic, Richard no longer 1960 or 1961 they publicly broke Tse-tung and scornful of the New was part of the organization. He with the Communist movement. Left’s professed commitment to has little to say about Hayden’s Despite their infiltrating and leav- participatory democracy, Progres- forays into armed struggle and of- ing, they couldn’t fathom why sive Labor’s disciplined cadres tri- fers only one—positive—mention left-wing groups would be suspi- umphed over two other factions, of “former SDS leader and Weath- cious or intolerant of Communists. each professing loyalty to some erperson” Bernardine Dohrn. He While now critical of the Commu- form of Marxism-Leninism. The notes how pleased he was that she nist Party as an organization, Dick most infamous, the Weatherman helped arrange publicity for his remains proud of individual Com- group, soon embarked on a decade- first book in Chicago. Dohrn, like munists like his parents for their long campaign of terrorist vio- her husband Bill Ayers, remains “heroic defense of the best aspects lence, bombing buildings, physi- unapologetic about the bombings of the American Constitution and cally attacking enemies, engaging they helped carry out in the 1970s. the American political tradition.” in group sex to smash monogamy, There are other odd omissions Attending graduate school in and rhetorically praising such mur- and admissions that reveal the psychology at the University of derers as Charles Manson. authors’ attitudes toward Com- Michigan, while Mickey worked The couple has little to say about munists and Communist regimes.

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Politics&Ideas.indd 37 1/16/19 1:42 PM There is relatively little about for- demic critics as “a street mobster” conformity that he once decried. eign affairs; Dick insists that radi- and another as “a sort of raving fas- He indignantly denies that there is cals should take stands only “on is- cist.” While in Chicago, Mickey was any discrimination against Repub- sues where we could actively make a robbed and they suffered a home licans or conservative faculty in difference.” He proudly recounts his invasion. higher education, even though they opposition to the Vietnam War and In May 1969, Dick was attacked are now a rarity in the social sci- travelling to Bratislava to meet with in his office by an ax-wielding assail- ences. And in any event, he notes, North Vietnamese and Vietcong ant and severely injured. Although there is a wide range of opinions leaders. But he never mentions the the crime was never solved, he spec- among people identifying as Demo- boat people or reeducation camps ulates, based on government files crats. Because he is open about his or genocide that followed America’s he later obtained, that a member political beliefs in the classroom, defeat or the vitriol unleashed on of a right-wing group, the Legion of he says, he was not secretly indoc- radicals who denounced Commu- Justice, was probably responsible. trinating students. And he insists nist repression. He disdains the So, spurning an offer of tenure at that he always made it “possible for social-democratic governments of Chicago by his “fascist colleagues,” conservative students to voice their Scandinavia and rejects authori- he moved to the University of thoughts and their perspectives” tarian Communism, although he California-Santa Barbara, where he in his classes. Yet when he became offhandedly remarks that in China, spent the next three decades. chair of the sociology department Cuba, and Vietnam, the Commu- The last third of the book is a pan- in 1975, he undertook recruitment nists took power legitimately. He egyric to the institutions and organi- of new faculty focused on “com- denounces China and Vietnam for zations that the couple helped create mitment to social change.” And beginning to promote capitalism. in their new home. They steadily he has nothing to say about the The couple named their second built an alliance among university phenomenon of students shutting son for Vito Marcantonio, a Com- faculty, students, and community down talks by conservative figures munist-aligned congressman from activists. This work was in part fi- or seeking to marginalize dissent- New York, because he cast one of the nanced by millionaires and trust- ing viewpoints. two votes against America’s defend- funders living in the area, includ- Since Communism and social ing South Korea. Scornful of the ing Hayden’s then-wife, Jane Fonda. democracy have both failed, the “conventional wisdom” that Alger Although their major focus was couple calls for a new New Left Hiss was a Soviet agent, he says that environmentalism, they branched based on the idea that “all social the USSR was not an enemy while out into zoning regulations to re- relations—both macro and micro— Hiss spied, and he wishes that “a strict developers, limit population should enable everyone to partici- new generation of historians would growth, and otherwise implement pate in making the decisions that look with fresh eyes on the whole social control of the economy. While affect them.” The key, they say, is to matter of U.S. Communist Party touting their success, neither Dick capture the Democratic Party and involvement in Soviet espionage.” nor Mickey considers why Califor- expel its corporate supporters and And today, Mickey refuses to say the nia, with the strictest environmental financiers. The mistake that Henry Pledge of Allegiance. and development requirements in Wallace made in 1948 was to make Life at the University of Chicago the country, has become the most a quixotic run as a third-party can- was a series of conflicts. Although inegalitarian state and is losing both didate. Bernie Sanders’s presiden- the “conservative” sociology de- businesses and middle-class resi- tial campaign, they believe, is evi- partment at Chicago had hired dents to states like Texas. dence that socialists can transform him despite his radical past, Dick Dick became a figure of some America by focusing on concrete was a perpetual troublemaker. His influence at UCSB. His effort to policies and avoiding inflamma- colleagues and the administration transform the university reflected tory and divisive debates about ide- grudgingly tolerated his nonstop his belief that in changing society, ology. They are also encouraged by agitation and support for demon- culture matters and higher educa- the rise of Jeremy Corbyn’s new La- strations against the university and tion would play a crucial role in bour Party in England. Never mind the department for alleged sins, transforming American politics. As that Corbyn is an anti-Semite. ranging from cooperating with the he pushed in various ways to insti- That Communists and other Selective Service System to denying tutionalize participatory democ- enemies of democracy have insinu- a mediocre political activist tenure. racy, he demonstrated that it could ated themselves into organizations Dick denounces one of his aca- easily coexist with the ideological that once shunned them (the new-

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Politics&Ideas.indd 38 1/16/19 1:42 PM est example is the emergence of a on the left. That troubling idea is ality on a daily basis. Although Communist caucus in the Demo- in evidence throughout this book. he does not dismiss the need for cratic Socialists of America) is in But to the honest reader, it is not innovation to keep religious tradi- part a consequence of the notion justified either by the experience of tion relevant, he takes issue with purveyed by Mickey and Dick Dick and Mickey or the state of the the approach of the “Golden Rule Flacks that there are no enemies left as it exists today. q Jews,” representing the bulk of non-Orthodox Jews, for whom the “core religious imperative” is being good to one’s fellow human be- ings. For Wertheimer, versions of Judaism based primarily on gen- Saving the eralized, universalist principles are no substitute for the counter- cultural worldview and particular rituals characteristic of tradition- Leaky Vessels al Judaism. Wertheimer’s honesty about the failings of Conservative Judaism The New American Judaism: sonal interviews conducted with in particular is refreshing, given How Jews Practice Their 160 rabbis across the denomina- his decades as a professor at the Religion Today tions. denomination’s central institution, By Jack Wertheimer Wertheimer explores the Jewish the Jewish Theological Seminary. Princeton University Press, beliefs and practices of the Jewish He also expresses dismay with 272 pages rank and file and demonstrates decisions in both the Reform and how and why the religious culture Conservative movements compro- Reviewed by of non-Orthodox Jews is weaken- mising the quality and quantity Roberta Rosenthal Kwall ing and confined to liminal or of Jewish education. He discusses “peak” moments. He also reveals some of the ways in which these F ONE WERE SEARCHING the existence of a burgeoning level two movements have been grow- for a comprehensive study of creative, spiritual innovation ing closer in recent years, a phe- of American Judaism in the among synagogues of all types. By nomenon likely to continue given 21st century, complete with the end, it is apparent that while the rate of intermarriage among all of its contradictions and Wertheimer appreciates the ef- non-Orthodox Jews in general. The complexities,I one would need look forts behind such innovations, he book would have benefited from no further than Jack Wertheimer’s believes that many are insufficient a deeper dive into the question of new volume—the winner of the and at times misdirected. whether there is a future for the 2018 National Jewish Book Award Wertheimer begins by explor- Conservative and Reform move- for American Jewish Studies. The ing a range of religious patterns, ments as separate denominational New American Judaism is an ex- beliefs, and practices common on and institutional entities. amination of the religious lives of the spectrum of contemporary The book’s final section about American Jews in their religious Jews. He then goes into detail on how Jewish religious life is being communities, based largely on per- “the eclipse of Jewish denomina- reinvented highlights three prima- tions,” describing how Reform and ry sites for renewal: intensely ex- Roberta Rosenthal Kwall is Conservative Judaism both have perimental start-ups, conventional the Raymond P. Niro Professor at De- become “leaky vessels.” He is struck synagogues, and the Orthodox out- Paul University College of Law. She by how few rabbis other than reach known as kiruv. Wertheimer is the author of The Myth of the Cul- Chabad affiliates “expressed par- accurately captures how kiruv tural Jew (Oxford University Press) ticular pride in their movement’s workers instruct their non-Ortho- and The Soul of Creativity (Stanford national leadership.” dox constituents regarding Jewish University Press). Kwall’s current For Wertheimer, Judaism is observance. He observes: “Teachers book, Remix Judaism: Transmitting about the particulars of Jewish try to avoid being heavy-handed, Tradition in a Diverse World, is forth- tradition that need to be practiced but they do not shrink from speak- coming from Rowman & Littlefield. with consistency and intention- ing explicitly about God’s will.”

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Politics&Ideas.indd 39 1/16/19 1:42 PM This certainty about what God wants from Jews on the part of kiruv workers and their unequivo- cal directives about what Judaism Won’t You Be requires distinguishes them from the clergy of the more liberal de- nominations. His discussion invites contemplation of whether there My Neighbor? is a lesson here for non-Orthodox clergy. Wertheimer also documents the Alienated America: habitants of wealthy ones—such as impact kiruv has made on Jewish Why Some Places Thrive Chevy Chase, Maryland—tended to life in America, and he demon- and Others Collapse have faith in the American dream, strates its remarkable fluidity. He By Timothy P. Carney tended to enjoy robust social as- notes that while only a minor- Harper, 368 pages sociations, and tended to not sup- ity of Jews become Orthodox as port Donald Trump’s presidency. In a result of kiruv effort, he finds Reviewed by contrast, the people in the poorer kiruv workers themselves will of- Alexandra Hudson communities he visited, especially ten define success as strengthening those communities without strong Jewish activity in Reform, Conser- N RECENT YEARS, pub- civic ties, such as Fayette City, vative, and even federation circles, lishers have produced a Pennsylvania, tended to lack confi- as well as a willingness to marry veritable library of books, dence in America’s promises—and Jewish and raise “a Jewish family many of them bestsellers, also tended to support our current of any kind.” purporting to describe president. Wertheimer frames Jewish reli- America’sI white working class. Carney explains the difference gious practices and trends within Among these works, two questions between these two sorts towns the parameters of the issues facing consistently rise to the fore: Why in terms of alienation. The term, religion as a whole in the United have members of the white work- made famous by Karl Marx’s the- States, which clarifies that what ing class so strongly supported ory of labor and Soren Kierkeg- is happening within American Ju- Donald Trump and, relatedly, why aard’s assessment of modern man’s daism is not unique. His reliance does the American dream appear malaise, describes the individual’s on extensive rabbinic interviews to be receding ever further out of estrangement or isolation from adds to the richness and accessi- their reach? Tim Carney, commen- society, from his intimates, or bility of The New American Juda- tary editor for the Washington Ex- from himself. Carney argues that ism. Given Wertheimer’s stature aminer, tackles both of these ques- it is just this isolation that has as a senior educator in the field, he tions in his new book, Alienated rendered the American dream un- was able to tap into a pool of au- America. obtainable for large swaths of our thorities that might have been dif- Carney follows in the footsteps country’s population: The decline ficult for other scholars to access. of Tocqueville, traversing commu- of civic institutions—most impor- One problem with this approach nities across America, to find his tant, the church—has caused a is that it might not shed sufficient answers. He discovers that the vi- degree of social alienation that has light on the lived experience of tality of the American dream turns serious political consequences. significant portions of Jews who primarily on geography—specifi- If this sounds familiar, it should. are either unaffiliated or affili- cally, on whether one’s neighbor- As Carney notes, his book draws ated but more guarded with their hood is tightly knit together by the heavily on the work of well-known rabbis. To his credit, Wertheimer invisible bonds of civil society. Car- writers and scholars: Robert Put- acknowledges this point at the ney reports that among the com- nam, Charles Murray, and J.D. outset. munities he investigated, the in- Vance on the decay of civil society, Vital, necessary, and enjoyable and Stanford’s Raj Chetty and MIT’s to read, The New American Juda- Alexandra Hudson, a former David Autor on this decay’s eco- ism is a significant contribution civil servant and Rotary Scholar, is nomic consequences. And many of to the literature about this ever- a writer in Indianapolis. She is cur- his arguments echo these authors. altering community.q rently working on a book on civility. Carney maintains that social and

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Politics&Ideas.indd 40 1/16/19 1:42 PM economic dysfunction—single-par- place have understood that man fact remains that despite enabling ent households, drug abuse, mass can flourish only in relationship technologies, we do still leave our unemployment, and the dissolution with others. It is only through com- homes and have opportunities to of community institutions—creates munity that we become fully hu- interact with others regularly. The a deadly feedback loop. The result- man. Carney is strong on this point. important questions is: How do we ing hopelessness, he says, has led His assault on technology, how- make those interactions count and many to seek salvation in the make- ever, falls short. Carney’s primary mean more? America-great-again nationalism of lament is that the decline of insti- It is true that Americans are Donald Trump. tutions leaves us with fewer op- lonely and isolated. And Carney is But Carney doesn’t simply re- portunities to interact and come right that, as with many important state these well-worn points. Rath- into close proximity with one an- problems of the heart, the remedy er, he uses his evocative personal other. He leads readers through is beyond the reach of politics. He narrative and independent report- an extensive discussion on how does offer some “small solutions” ing to bring life to the statistical advances in technology have pro- that are within the government’s descriptions of poor communities’ moted atomization by making so- purview: Urban planners can pro- social and economic decline. For ex- cial relationships less important. mote neighborliness by mixing ample, in the most moving section We don’t eat out anymore; we have commercial and residential neigh- of the book, Carney describes what food delivered. We no longer ask borhoods; walkability should be he learned when his baby daughter friends or family for rides to the improved in various communities; was in the ICU. His church com- airport; we have Uber and Lyft. We and policies that make homes cost- munity gathered around him and don’t need to meet and get to know lier should be done away with (as his family. They brought meals and our neighbors should we require a costlier homes mean less family treats to the hospital and drove his cup of sugar; with Amazon Prime formation). kids to school, sports, and lessons. Now and FreshDirect, we can have Carney also admonishes read- This social capital—a capital they groceries delivered to our home ers to begin with the understand- didn’t know they had until they within the hour. We don’t go to ing that they are building a “City needed it—is the stuff of the good the movie theater; we have Netf- of God” in whatever geographi- life, which is why Carney sees a dis- lix. “The serendipitous encounters cal location they find themselves. integrated American social fabric with neighbors become rarer and And he is absolutely correct: The as the cause of so many ailments. rarer as our lives are increasingly remedy does largely begin with us Carney also builds on earlier bespoke, made contingent on our and how we approach and engage work by describing how houses of whims and tastes,” Carney writes. one another in our everyday lives. worship act as an important but- All this is certainly true: Tech- It starts with accepting, or initiat- tress against social fragmentation nology makes it easier to avoid ing, the invitation to lunch or cof- and political decay. Communities engaging with other people. Yet, fee, even though we are tired and with strong religious groups of interestingly, the healthy commu- busy. Or it is as simple as striking varied traditions—Islam, Judaism, nities that Carney highlights are up a conversation with the person Mormonism, Catholicism, Dutch probably making good use of Uber, behind you in line at the grocery, Reformed, and others—tended to Amazon Prime, and Netflix. In- exchanging direct eye contact, a be healthier and more optimistic deed, technology is a problem only smile, and a warm hello with your about the future. And they were if you assume that engagement and barista or fellow subway passen- less prone to have voted for Trump. proximity are sufficient conditions gers. Greeting your fellow citizen This is especially true of those for forming and enhancing social is rare, and you may be rebuffed or communities whose inhabitants relationships. We’re all familiar met with confusion. But these hab- regularly attended church. with the experience of riding the its of common decency, which help From God’s declaration in Gen- New York subway in a sea of strang- us to care about the well-being of esis that it is not good for man to ers or being at the dinner table one another, are the fundamental be alone and the wise affirmation while the person across from us building blocks of the civil society of friendship offered by Aristotle, is thumbing away on their mobile whose demise so many political Cicero, and Marcus Aurelius, to the device. Neither of these situa- commentators lament. Without African idea of Ubuntu (“a person tions, though they bring people such habits, the future is bleak for becomes a person through other physically near together, neces- our civil and political institutions, persons”), sages across time and sarily results in relationships. The and for each of us.q

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Politics&Ideas.indd 41 1/16/19 1:42 PM Culture & Civilization

Étude, Brute?

The case for tional careers in the 20th century contemporaries, a miniaturist who performed and recorded such sta- turned out salon pieces that were Chopin ples of his catalogue as the A-flat wrought with deftness and grace Polonaise (“Heroic”) and the B-flat but nonetheless did not deserve By Terry Teachout Minor Piano Sonata (“Funeral to be spoken of in the same breath March”). They remain central to as the large-scale masterpieces of F THE well-known the repertoires of the rising genera- Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, composers of the tion of virtuosi, just as they have Schumann, Wagner, and Tchai- 19th century, Fry- always been beloved by concertgo- kovsky. H.L. Mencken summed up deryk Chopin (as ers. Yet Chopin’s phenomenal pop- this point of view in a 1912 epigram: his name is spelled ularity was long viewed with suspi- “Chopin—two embalmers at work Oin Polish, his native tongue) is the cion by critics, in part because his upon a minor poet.” only one whose complete works compositions, without exception, It was to be shared by a small continue to be played regularly— all make use of the piano; in addi- but influential group of 20th-cen- indeed, without cease. Most of the tion, most of them are solo pieces tury pianists, the best known of pianists who had major interna- that are between two and 10 min- whom were Edwin Fischer, Glenn utes in length. No other important Gould, and Artur Schnabel, and Terry Teachout is Commen- classical composer has worked their pupils and followers, among tary’s critic-at-large and the drama within so tightly circumscribed a them Alfred Brendel, Clifford Cur- critic of the Wall Street Journal. compass. zon, and Leon Fleisher. None of Satchmo at the Waldorf, his 2011 This fact initially caused Chopin them played Chopin’s music in play about Louis Armstrong, has to be depicted, especially in Central public other than sporadically, if at been produced off Broadway and Europe and Victorian England, as a all. “If I spend the same amount of throughout America. figure of lesser consequence than his time with a Chopin [étude] or with

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Culture & Civ.indd 42 1/16/19 1:43 PM some Beethoven bagatelle, I get quiet but full of delicate nuances. tired of the Chopin piece sooner,” Chopin He is believed to have played in Schnabel once said. i public fewer than 20 times, leading In addition, it was widely felt made Hector Berlioz to complain that that there was something suspect, his living “unless you are a prince, a minister, perhaps even unhealthy, about or an ambassador, you might as Chopin’s exquisite lyricism. Ni- teaching piano well give up hope of hearing him.” etzsche claimed that “it is not all To the extent that he ever that rare that his music comes to well-heeled became a true celebrity, it was across as pale, lacking sunlight, op- students of because of his liaison with George pressed, even though elegantly and Sand, the French novelist with richly clothed.” Furthermore, some indifferent whom he lived from 1838 to 1847. of his ardent admirers seemed not ability. He Sand smoked opium-spiked cigars, to have fully grasped the nature dressed in men’s clothing, adopted of his achievement. “People were wrote no a male pseudonym to advertise simply enchanted with Chopin’s autobiography, her feminist beliefs, and wrote music in the United States,” said baldly autobiographical novels, the pianist Claudio Arrau. “They died too soon to among them one about Chopin never considered that he might make records, that she published while they were also be profound.” still together. His fast-deteriorating All this helps explain why Alan and left behind health—he grew so frail that he had Walker’s Fryderyk Chopin: A Life no symphonies. to be carried up staircases by his va- and Times, which came out in let—and her evident lack of interest the U.S. last October, is the first meant that their relationship soon full-scale English-language pri- became all but sexless. But it was mary-source biography of Cho- tets, operas, or ballets for a later still scandalous, which presumably pin.* Best known for his definitive generation of writers to parse at contributed to his lifelong inclina- three-volume biography of Franz leisure and at length. tion to keep a low profile. While Liszt, Walker has done an equally By all rights, then, Chopin he had famous friends, includ- thorough and thoughtful job of should have gone the way of the ing Liszt, Eugène Delacroix, and recounting the life of Poland’s fore- many other 19th-century pianist- Heinrich Heine, the rarity of his most composer, of whose music he composers whose renown did not concerts meant that he was known is an unstinting admirer. At first outlive them. Instead, his music is to the public at large solely through glance, Chopin’s life would seem as familiar today as it was at the his music. to have been uneventful, especially time of his death in 1849. It is ubiq- Unlike Sand, Chopin was not by comparison with that of Liszt, uitous—but is it truly great? a confessional artist. Not only did a gargantuan personality who ap- he give his pieces such blankly ge- peared both as a pianist and a con- CHILD PRODIGY BORN neric titles as “étude” and “scherzo,” ductor before sold-out crowds in not far from Warsaw in but no more than a handful have every corner of Europe, renowned A 1810, Chopin was doubt- any known connection to specific as a composer as well as an inter- less infected in boyhood with the events in his life. In Walker’s words: preter of other men’s works. tuberculosis that killed him at the “His [études], preludes, nocturnes, Chopin, by contrast, was a age of 39. In 1830, he emigrated to mazurkas, and polonaises seem to publicity-shunning introvert who France to pursue a musical career. exist in rarefied seclusion, unfet- played only his own music and He settled in Paris in 1831 and lived tered by the human condition. … performed mainly in the salons of there for the rest of his life, never We could almost describe Chopin Paris and England on increasingly returning to the land of his birth. as a displaced person of musical rare occasions. He made his liv- Prevented by illness from lead- history—a classical composer in ing teaching piano to well-heeled ing the exhausting life of a barn- word and deed, condemned to walk students of indifferent ability. He storming virtuoso, Chopin chose in silence among the chattering wrote no autobiography, died too instead to appear mainly in do- romantics.” soon to make records, and left be- mestic settings intimate enough to hind no symphonies, string quar- accommodate his style, which was * Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 768 pages

Commentary 43

Culture & Civ.indd 43 1/16/19 1:43 PM Walker successfully penetrates the piano.” To hear such a piece is to Chopin’s hard shell of reserve and Chopin’s be forced to rethink conventional conveys a clear sense of his private i wisdom about the nature of the personality, which was fascinating music relationship between chronologi- but unattractive. Foppishly vain, had a strongly cal duration and expressive “scale.” sarcastic to a fault, and nastily Noteworthy in another way are anti-Semitic, he had no use for the improvisational the 60-odd mazurkas (1825-49), music of most of his fellow roman- concise pieces in triple meter that tics, and said so. He reserved his quality. But the are subtly poetic evocations of a admiration for Bach, Mozart, and pieces that were Polish folk-dance form that Chopin Bellini, dismissing Beethoven as had gotten to know in his youth. “vulgar” and describing Liszt in a first improvised Even more rhythmically vigorous way that not only encapsulates his and then written than the waltzes that he also loved own jaundiced view of musical ro- to write and play, these wonder- manticism but is typical of his acid down were fully varied works, many of which sense of humor: “One of these days then subjected contain radical harmonic innova- he will be a member of parliament, tions that presage 20th-century or perhaps even King of Abys- to a rigorous, modernism, contain within their sinia or the Congo—but as regards endlessly modest compass the composer’s the themes from his compositions, very essence. well, they will remain buried with protracted Just as impressive, though, are the newspapers.” process of the longer single-movement pieces, Chopin’s reluctance to play for in particular the four ballades. All large audiences, Walker tells us, revision. written in a distinctively personal had as much to do with his stage adaptation of sonata-allegro form, fright (and, very likely, his snob- they are compact yet grandiose bishness) as it did with his physi- pieces that were first improvised utterances of which the G Minor cal incapacities. He told Liszt that and then written down were then Ballade (1835), one of Vladimir “the public frightens me; I feel subjected to a rigorous, endlessly Horowitz’s signature pieces, is the suffocated by its panting breath, protracted process of revision. The most famous. In it, Chopin gives paralyzed by its curious glance.” scratched-out passages in Chopin’s the impression of telling a word- Yet he believed devoutly in his own manuscripts bear mute witness to less “story” whose implications genius, declaring his “noble wish his perfectionism. are dire. Had it entered the world and intention to create for myself a To be sure, most of them were as the first movement of a piano new world.” small-scale, even gnomic utteranc- sonata, the G Minor Ballade would That musical world was full of es, albeit ones that sound emotion- have left no doubt that he was a the melting tenderness heard in al depths disproportionate to their great composer. Yet it is complete Chopin’s 21 nocturnes (written be- brevity. Had their sweet melan- in itself, needing no companion tween 1827 and 1846), in which he choly been all there was to Chopin, movements to achieve its emotion- translated into pianistic terms the though, he would now be remem- al catharsis. Robert Schumann had lyricism of the golden-age operatic bered as a strictly minor master. the piano concertos in mind when sopranos whose singing he adored. But even on the smallest of scales, he called Chopin’s music “cannons It may have been these pieces that he was also capable of summoning buried in flowers,” but he might as inspired Heine to call Chopin the up the colossal force heard in his well have been thinking of this pro- “Raphael of the piano,” going on to “Revolutionary” Étude (1831), into foundly, devastatingly tragic work. say that “when he plays I forget all whose two and a half minutes he On the extremely rare occasions other masters of the instrument… packed all of the desperate tumult when Chopin did essay multi- and sink into the sweet abyss of his that he had in mind when, refer- movement form, most notably in music, into the melancholy rapture ring to the anguish that Poland’s the B-flat Minor and B Minor of his exquisite and profound cre- dismemberment by its neighbors Piano Sonatas of 1839 and 1844, the ations.” Chopin’s music, the noc- at that moment in time created in gripping results gave the lie to the turnes in particular, had a strongly him, he told a friend that he was condescending bon mot that Hugh improvisational quality. But the “only able to pour out my grief at Reginald Haweis, a Victorian cleric

44 Culture & Civilization : February 2019

Culture & Civ.indd 44 1/16/19 1:43 PM who dabbled in music criticism, form. Yes, I quite mean it: it was as if more remarkable because it’s ac- tucked into a once-admired 1871 Haydn had put his bricks into a hod tually about two journeys: from treatise called Music and Morals: in a set pattern, whilst Chopin had Tehran to Utah to New York City— “He was great in small things, and built something with his.” but also from Islam, to atheism, to small in great ones.” Shaw’s view is now dominant. Catholicism. In those days, English music The once-conventional critical “wis- Until his teen years, Ahmari criticism was still in thrall of the dom” about Chopin’s music has lived in Tehran in an upper- prudery that George Bernard Shaw finally become a thing of the past: middle-class compound with his curtly dismissed as “ladylike.” Un- He is now recognized as a master mother, father, and grandparents. like so many of his contemporaries, for whom no apologies of any kind His family was an odd collection: Shaw saw that Chopin, far from need be made. And as fine as Alan His father was a hard-drinking ar- being a mere miniaturist, was an in- Walker’s biography is, it is not nec- chitect who, even as an adult, idol- novator of the first rank, going so far essary to read a word of it to know ized Holden Caulfield. His grand- as to invidiously compare a piece by that Chopin was in every way the father had been a prosperous, Haydn to the B-flat Minor Sonata: equal of any of the greatest classical secular government worker under “Nothing was clearer about it than composers who have ever lived. One the shah and had supported the that it beat Haydn’s work in point of need only listen—and marvel.q revolution out of nationalist sym- pathies—and was shocked when things turned out badly. Some of Ahmari’s childhood was not terribly distant from most Americans’—he had satellite TV and watched VHS tapes of the lat- Sohrab, est Hollywood movies. But there were important differences. For instance, on one family trip to So Good the shore (his family was well-off enough that they vacationed by the Caspian Sea), the Ahmari family From Fire, by Water: mindlessly put their faith in some was stopped at a “morality” check- My Journey to the Catholic Faith imaginary higher power. They point by the Iranian komiteh. They By Sohrab Ahmari wanted him, above all, to always were interrogated for two hours, St. Ignatius Press, 240 pages “be yourself.” during which time Ahmari prayed Ahmari’s parents threw grown- that his parents would not be Reviewed by Jonathan V. Last up parties and allowed their son flogged, arrested, or worse. This is to socialize with the adults as an not the sort of thing a boy forgets. OHRAB Ahmari grew up equal. When they took him to the The result of such experiences in an almost stereotypi- beach on holiday, they’d bring was that, from an early age, Ah- cally bohemian house- along a hot-water bottle full of mari held his homeland in disdain. hold. His parents were booze and get buzzed with their He saw Iran as a backward-looking well-educated free spir- friends in front of him. They di- culture whose animating forces Sits of the kind familiar to anyone vorced before his childhood was were anger and grievance. Instead, who lived through the 1970s: They complete. This picture of Ahmari’s he pined for America and the West, smoked and drank and had only youth as a potted version of post- for modernity and reason and one child. They encouraged their ’60s suburban America will be freedom. When Ahmari was 13, he son to address them not as “mom” familiar to anyone who has read or got his wish: He and his mother or “dad”—so bourgeois—but by seen The Ice Storm. Except for one were given green cards and they their first names. They were athe- thing: Sohrab Ahmari grew up in emigrated to the United States. ists who wanted young Sohrab to post-revolutionary Iran. They settled with an uncle who was be disdainful of the rubes who From Fire, by Water is Ah- already living in Utah. At which mari’s remarkable memoir about point Ahmari quickly became dis- Jonathan V. Last is executive his journey away from these very enchanted with America. editor at the Bulwark. interesting beginnings. It is made From Fire, by Water is a book of

Commentary 45

Culture & Civ.indd 45 1/16/19 1:43 PM many virtues, the most unexpected (that truth exists), it leads, inexo- of which is Ahmari’s subtle brand Ahmari rably, to Catholicism. You can stop of comedy, because, a third of the i at as many philosophical way sta- way through, it becomes, in addi- is the tions as you like—Aristotle, Hume, tion to everything else, a fish-out- rare Catholic Kant—but for them the roads of of-water story par excellence. reason, too, all lead to Rome. Many Ahmari arrives in the United who is both times a head Catholic can explain States throbbing with excitement head and heart. to you exactly why he believes. But at finally being freed of the con- ask them to describe the feeling fines of religious zealotry. He ex- He is reduced of their belief and it is as if you’re pects America to be the godless, speaking an alien language. hedonistic, modern paradise he’s to tears by the Ahmari is the rare Catholic seen in the movies. Except that he’s beauty of the who is both head and heart. He is in Utah. And while the Mormons reduced to tears by the beauty of he meets are all very pleasant and son of God. But the son of God humbling himself there are is no komiteh and you what brings him on the cross. But what brings him can, technically, drink coffee, the to the foot of the cross is his search teenage Ahmari is quietly outraged to the foot of for truth. Everything else is pale at being surrounded by pious the cross is his beside the foundational question: teetotalers who don’t smoke, or Is this true? have premarital sex, or even swear. search for truth. In one way, Sohrab Ahmari’s Finding himself surrounded by story is a particularly American the closest thing the West has to a one: Where else could a boy arrive friendly, smiling Sharia, Ahmari But Ahmari’s path to conser- from the shores of one of our fierc- decides to rebel. So he becomes a vative belief is shorter than the est enemies and end up writing Goth. one that ultimately leads him to for the Wall Street Journal—and The picture of this sophisticated religious belief and, finally, to the Commentary, where he was a Iranian teenager coming to Amer- Catholic Church. It starts slowly. A senior writer for a year before ica and being disillusioned not heavy, self-hating drinker, Ahmari becoming the op-ed editor of the because it’s a den of soulless hedo- finds himself walking around the New York Post—two decades later? nism but because it isn’t decadent Penn Station neighborhood one Where else could a former Muslim enough is, all on its own, worth the evening killing time while waiting become an angry atheist, then price of admission. Having him for a train. He had spent the previ- fall under the thrall of socialism, then don a black trench coat and ous night on a bender. For no good and finally embrace the Catholic combat boots in an attempt to stick reason, he goes into the Church of Church, all while being left wholly it to the Osmonds? This is solid, St. John the Baptist, on 30th Street, unmolested by the culture, the gov- 14-karat gold. as Mass is about to begin. He sits in ernment, and the citizenry? From the Goths, Ahmari pro- the back pew. And he weeps. But in another way, Ahmari’s gresses to real-deal socialism. He Catholic converts tend to fall tale is alien to the way Americans begins by cold-calling a local Com- into two categories: heart Catho- live now. Today, a great many munist group, the Worker’s Alli- lics and head Catholics. The heart people believe things simply be- ance, and joining so as to take up Catholics are drawn to the faith cause they already believe them. the class struggle. His group runs because belief is something inside They brook no dissent and view a self-published newspaper called them that they cannot shake off. reexamination as an affront. What Equity and the most sublime joke They can rationalize their love makes Sohrab Ahmari so different in From Fire, by Water may be for the church no more than they is that, even when he is at his most that the next time Ahmari finds can rationalize their love for their intransigent, his first commitment himself on staff at a newspaper, the mother. It simply is. is always to the truth, and he is publication is the Wall Street Jour- For head Catholics, faith is willing to keep asking questions in nal. The second best joke is that a matter of reason: The church search of it. Ahmari’s political conservatism is teaches certain things, and once In that way From Fire, by Wa- awakened by his experience work- you begin the chain of moral rea- ter is a spiritual memoir perfectly ing with Teach for America. soning with the most basic precept suited to our time.q

46 Culture & Civilization : February 2019

Culture & Civ.indd 46 1/16/19 1:43 PM MEDIA COMMENTARY

continued from page 48 of a map hanging in read spookily like campaign material. On January 3, Tlaib’s office. Someone had stuck to the map a Post-it Clare Foran wrote a piece headlined “Rashida Tlaib note on which they had written “Palestine” and drawn made history with her swearing-in. Here’s what to know an arrow pointing to Israel. Not subtle. Tlaib invited about the first Palestinian-American woman to serve in Women’s March organizer Linda Sarsour, a vicious Congress.” It contained the biographical information critic of Israel who has ties to anti-Semite Louis Far- you’d expect in a run-of-the-mill profile of a freshman rakhan, to the opening day of Congress. By January congressman. My favorite part was the section titled 6, describing senators who support a GOP Senate bill “Tlaib has broken barriers and glass ceilings before,” that would combat BDS, Tlaib tweeted, “They forgot which could have come from either a press release or what country they represent.” Here was an outright ac- an indictment. cusation of dual loyalty, an old anti-Semitic trope. And “When the new Congress gets underway, Tlaib an ironic one, too, considering how Tlaib wrapped will have a high-profile platform on Capitol Hill to herself in the flag of the Palestinian Authority on the confront the president and try to shape the agenda night of her election. of the new House Democratic majority,” Foran wrote. Tlaib’s personal history acts as cover for her fringe “The question now is what will she do when she gets to politics. Press outlets are so infatuated with the election Washington?” Shout expletives and accuse opponents of two Muslim women to Congress—Representative of serving a foreign power was probably not the answer Ilhan Omar of Minnesota also backs BDS—that news sto- she had in mind. ries hardly ever mention their views on the Middle East. The second CNN.com article, by Christina Zdano- Last August, the New York Times published a story by wicz, was published on January 4. It was a hard-hitting, Elizabeth Dias with the headline “For Rashida Tlaib, Pal- serious piece on…who am I kidding, the story was estinian Heritage Infuses a Detroit Sense of Community.” about Tlaib’s fashion choices. “Women honor Rashida But Dias seemed too dumbfounded by Tlaib’s religion to Tlaib by wearing Palestinian gowns as she is sworn in devote any space to her actual foreign-policy views: to Congress,” read the headline. Tlaib’s decision to wear a traditional Palestinian gown, or thobe, to Capitol Hill Her story offers a remarkable counterpoint won plaudits on social media, we are told. “Rashida to anti-Muslim policy and sentiment rising Tlaib on Thursday became the first Palestinian-Ameri- around the country, and especially to President can woman to be sworn in to Congress,” wrote Zdanow- Trump, who has banned travel from several icz. “Weeks ago, she announced she would wear a thobe majority-Muslim countries. … to the ceremony and she kept her word.” What a hero. In a year when a record number of women Subheadings in this post included “A solidarity are running for Congress, and races across the movement is born on social media” and “Women of country, include gay, lesbian, and transgender Palestinian heritage dressed to support her.” By the end candidates and many people of color, Ms. Tlaib, of the piece, I was expecting another section entitled 42, represents a new addition to the mosaic of “Grain production on collective farms rises 10 percent,” American politics. … but it never arrived. … For the first time, an American almost Nuaddi Darraj, a Tlaib supporter who publicized certainly on her way to Congress stood shoul- the #TweetYourThobe hashtag, told CNN.com, “We der to shoulder with her Muslim sisters and have a Congress that finally looks like our country and bowed toward Mecca. that’s incredibly thrilling to me.” Less thrilling to me is the prospect of a national media so bedazzled by the di- We get it—she’s Muslim! How about you ask her versity of the Democratic Congress that it pays little at- why she lied to her fellow Democrats at J Street? tention to the policies democratic socialists would have CNN.com devoted two articles to the meaning us adopt. A Politico headline last August read, “Rashida of Tlaib’s election. Neither mentioned BDS, and both Tlaib Is the Left’s Way Forward.” Uh oh. q

Commentary 47

Culture & Civ.indd 47 1/16/19 1:43 PM MEDIA COMMENTARY Milestone Myopia and the Newsy Anti-Semite

MATTHEW CONTINETTI

ANCY PELOSI OPENED the 116th Congress yond a person’s race, ethnicity, creed, and gender. with a hosanna to bipartisanship, compro- Running last August in a competitive primary to N mise, and civility. The spirit of magnanimity replace John Conyers, Tlaib supported a two-state solu- lasted approximately 10 hours. Then video of Rashida tion to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. She also said she Tlaib began circulating on the Internet. Speaking at a wanted to continue aid to Israel. These positions won party, the Michigan Democrat, daughter of Palestinian her the endorsement of the progressive group J Street, immigrants, self-described democratic socialist, and and the donations that often follow its imprimatur. But newly minted congresswoman, shouted: “We’re gonna as soon as she won—by fewer than 1,000 votes—Tlaib impeach the mother—er!” changed her mind. “I will not support racist countries Tlaib’s outburst was no surprise to close observ- that pick and choose who gets access to justice,” she ers of her political career. She gained notoriety in told In These Times. She endorsed the so-called right August 2016 when she heckled then-candidate Donald of return, said she stands “by the rights of people who Trump during a speech at the Detroit Economic Club. support” the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement, She was arrested last October during a protest at a or BDS, and called for a one-state solution. McDonald’s. Her Twitter feed contains plenty of salty Rashida Tlaib would deny military aid to a stra- language: “When it’s our brown or black babies dying,” tegic ally. She backs activists waging economic warfare she wrote last December, “those in power to change it, against said ally. She lends her voice to bi-nationalism, don’t give a s—.” Nor did she back away from her vul- which would change the character of the Jewish State gar description of the president. “I will always speak beyond recognition. The policies she supports would truth to power. #unapologetically me,” she tweeted abolish Israel as the national home of the Jewish peo- during the controversy over her remarks. A few days ple. She isn’t talking about overturning the outcome of later, she co-wrote a pro-impeachment op-ed for the 1967. She’s talking about overturning 1948. Detroit Free Press. And her position has hardened with time. Last Tlaib combines maximally left-wing positions December, in an interview with the Intercept, Tlaib with a maximally confrontational attitude, so she will announced, “I personally support the BDS movement.” have no trouble inside Pelosi’s House of Resistance. She said that she planned to rebuke the American Israel But it would be unfair to call her an obnoxious, far-left Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, by leading her own rabble-rouser. She is far worse. Tlaib is using her no- congressional delegation on a fact-finding mission to toriety to bring anti-Semitic policies and rhetoric into the West Bank. “I don’t think AIPAC provides a real, fair the mainstream—and many news outlets are far too lens into this issue,” she said. “It’s one sided. … [They] obsessed with the novelty of her identity to care. They have these lavish trips to Israel, but they don’t show the suffer from milestone myopia—the inability to see be- side that I know is real, which is what’s happening to my grandmother and what’s happening to my family there.” Matthew Continetti is the editor in chief of Early in January, Buzzfeed reporter Hannah Al- the Washington Free Beacon. lam tweeted a photograph continued on page 47

48 February 2019

Culture & Civ.indd 48 1/16/19 1:43 PM YOU DESERVE TO KNOW THE TRUTH... Secure Israel’s Golan Heights Rule It’s time to affirm Israel’s Golan Heights sovereignty—protecting U.S. interests and preventing Iranian and Hezbollah terrorists from overrunning the Middle East. Syria abused its 21-year commanding position on the Golan the acquisition of territory through aggressive conquest, Heights to shell Israeli civilians below with thousands of it is universally agreed that Israel’s control of the Golan mortars. Since repulsing Syrian attacks in 1967 and 1973 Heights was the result of a defensive war. When Israel wars, Israel finally annexed the Golan Heights, keeping it defeated Syrian belligerence in 1967, no international peaceful and secure now for 52 years. strictures against defensive conquest existed. What’s more, the United States has even recognized territory What are the facts? seized in aggressive wars, such as the Republic of Syria has treated Israel as its enemy since the Vietnam’s sovereignty over both the north and south of founding of the Jewish state, waging belligerent the country, and India’s illegal seizure of the Portuguese wars against Israel in 1948, 1967 and 1973—and losing territory of Goa. each one. Israel took possession of the Golan Heights “Recognizing Syria’s Assad following the 1967 Six-Day War. After consistent Israel’s Golan regimes should refusals by Syrian dictator Hafez al Assad to negotiate be punished for peace, Israel asserted sovereignty over the Heights in Heights sovereignty warmongering. 1981. As the Syrian state dissolved into civil war and would be a powerful Syria has been one of now exists as a puppet state under Russian and Iranian the most brutal and protection, Israeli control over this 695-square-mile form of justice.” bloody nations in the territory provides invaluable strategic security on its Middle East, having Syrian border—for itself, as well as for U.S. and world engineered the assassination of former Lebanese prime interests. These critical concerns make a compelling minister Rafic Hariri, used outlawed poisonous chemicals case for the United States and other world powers to kill its own people, and committed such war crimes as to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan torture and bombardment of its civilians. In addition, Heights now. Syria has waged unprovoked war against Israel three Israel’s Golan Heights sovereignty keeps U.S. times. To insist on return of the Golan Heights to Syria enemies in check. The U.S. has opposed Syrian dictator would reward the evil of the Assad regimes—whereas Bashar al-Assad since he ascended to office in 2000, recognizing Israel’s sovereignty would be a powerful form due to brutal treatment of his own people—including of justice. the murder of half a million Syrian civilians—as well as Syria’s civil war and subsequent domination by Russia and his sponsorship of international terror and consistent Iran have turned the Arab nation into one of the most unstable opposition to U.S. policies. Today, Syria’s existence in the Middle East—and likely to remain so for generations depends on its power-sharing with two of America’s to come. In addition, Syria has steadfastly refused to consider greatest enemies, Russia and Iran. With the U.S. peace with Israel in exchange for return of the Golan Heights. withdrawal of troops from Syria, Israel’s sovereignty on Israel has now controlled the Golan Heights for 52 years— the Golan Heights remains our strongest bulwark against more than twice as long as Syria’s 21 years. Whereas Syria’s Syrian, Russian and especially Iranian aggression. reign over the Golan Heights was marked by constant Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights attacks on neighboring Israel, Israel’s rule has ensured impedes Iranian imperialism. As the world’s largest peace and stability. It’s time for the U.S. to recognize Israel’ sponsor of global terrorism, Iran has mounted an righteous, legal and strategically critical sovereignty over expansionist drive designed to give it a powerful hegemonic the Golan territory. land bridge from Teheran through Baghdad and Damascus to Beirut. Both Iran and its Lebanese proxy, the designated- terrorist group Hezbollah, have sworn to destroy Israel, and This message has been published and paid for by both have stationed troops and armaments near Israel’s border with Syria. Iran also uses its Syrian bases to ferry advanced missile and anti-aircraft technology to Hezbollah Facts and Logic About the Middle East in order to fortify the terror group’s hand against Israel from Lebanon. Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights P.O. Box 3460, Berkeley, CA 94703 allows Jerusalem to monitor Teheran’s imperialist misdeeds James Sinkinson, President closely and defeat them before they can further threaten Gerardo Joffe (z"l), Founder Israel and regional stability. FLAME is a tax-exempt, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. Its purpose is the research and publication of facts regarding developments in International law supports Israel’s sovereignty over the Middle East and exposing false propaganda that might harm the the Golan Heights. While international law prohibits United States, Israel and other allies in the region. You tax-deductible contributions are welcome. To receive free FLAME updates, visit our website: www.factsandlogic.org

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