Dædalus Coming up in Dædalus: Dædalus on Life Anthony Kenny, Thomas Laqueur, Shai Lavi, Lorraine Daston, Paul Rabinow, Robert P

Dædalus coming up in Dædalus: Dædalus on life Anthony Kenny, Thomas Laqueur, Shai Lavi, Lorraine Daston, Paul Rabinow, Robert P. George, Robert J. Richards, Nikolas Rose, John Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Broome, Jeff McMahan, and Adrian Woolfson Fall 2007 on nature Leo Marx, William Cronon, Cass Sunstein, Daniel Kevles, Bill McKibben, Harriet Ritvo, Gordon Orians, Camille Parmesan,

Margaret Schabas, and Philip Tetlock & Michael Oppenheimer Fall 2007: on the public interest on the E. J. Dionne Jr. Why the public interest matters now 5 on cosmopolitanism Martha C. Nussbaum, Margaret C. Jacob, A. A. Long, Pheng Cheah, public interest William A. Galston An old debate renewed 10 Darrin McMahon, Helena Rosenblatt, Samuel Scheffler, Arjun Adam Wolfson From James Madison to Abraham Lincoln 20 Appadurai, Rogers Smith, Peter Brooks, and Craig Calhoun Nathan Glazer Reflections on an elusive goal 30 plus poetry by Ted Richer, C. D. Wright &c.; ½ction by Chris Abani, Jagdish Bhagwati Some implications for economic policy 37 Wesley Brown, Alix Ohlin &c.; and notes by Phyllis Coley, Don Gary Hart The commonwealth ideal 45 Harrán, Richard Kraut, Ian Ayres &c. Christine Todd Whitman Governing in the public interest: then & now 51 Robert N. Bellah Ethical politics: reality or illusion? 59 Amy Gutmann The dangers of extremist rhetoric 70 Lance Taylor Economists & the wealth of nations 79

poetry Molly McQuade Spring’s So Sad, We Want to Know Why 88

½ction Mary Gordon Dilly 89

dialogue Cornel West & D. Graham Burnett On Melville’s The Con½dence-Man 101

notes Omer Bartov on Eastern Galicia’s past & present 115 Harriet Ritvo on the animal turn 118

U.S. $13; www.amacad.org

Inside front cover: A centerfold from Harper’s Week- ly, engraved by Thomas Nast (1840–1902) to mark Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1863. That year, Thanksgiving fell in the midst of the Civil War, and seven days after Abraham Lincoln had delivered his Gettysburg Address, prophesying a nation born again, “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Nast depicts Lady Liberty kneeling in prayer, surrounded by inset images of a variety of other Americans in prayer, including President Lincoln. See William A. Galston on An old debate renewed: the politics of the public interest, pages 10–19: “The public interest can help us understand and seek a politics of common purpose . . . . It seeks to summon what Abraham Lincoln called ‘the better angels of our nature.’” Image © Son of the South Material. James Miller, Editor of Dædalus Wiliam A. Galston and E. J. Dionne Jr., Consulting Editors for essays on the public interest Phyllis S. Bendell, Managing Editor and Director of Publications Esther Y. Chen, Assistant Editor

Board of editors Steven Marcus, Editor of the Academy Russell Banks, Fiction Adviser Rosanna Warren, Poetry Adviser Joyce Appleby (u.s. history, ucla), Stanley Hoffmann (government, Harvard), Donald Kennedy (environmental science, Stanford), Martha C. Nussbaum (law and philosophy, Chicago), Neil J. Smelser (sociology, Berkeley), Steven Weinberg (physics, University of Texas at Austin); ex of½cio: Emilio Bizzi (President of the Academy), Leslie Cohen Berlowitz (Chief Executive Of½cer) Editorial advisers

Daniel Bell (sociology, Harvard), Michael Boudin (law, u.s. Court of Appeals), Wendy Doniger (religion, Chicago), Howard Gardner (education, Harvard), Carol Gluck (Asian history, Columbia), Stephen Greenblatt (English, Harvard), Thomas Laqueur (European history, Berkeley), Alan Lightman (English and physics, mit), Steven Pinker (psychology, Harvard), Diane Ravitch (education, nyu), Amartya Sen (economics, Harvard), Richard Shweder (human development, Chicago), Frank Wilczek (physics, mit)

Contributing Editors Robert S. Boynton, D. Graham Burnett, Peter Pesic, Danny Postel

Dædalus is designed by Alvin Eisenman Dædalus

Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

The pavement labyrinth once in the nave of Reims Cathedral (1240), in a drawing, with ½gures of the architects, by Jacques Cellier (c. 1550–1620).

Dædalus was founded in 1955 and established as a quarterly in 1958. The journal’s namesake was renowned in ancient Greece as an inventor, scientist, and unriddler of riddles. Its emblem, a maze seen from above, symbolizes the aspiration of its founders to “lift each of us above his cell in the labyrinth of learning in order that he may see the entire structure as if from above, where each separate part loses its comfortable separateness.” The American Academy of Arts & Sciences, like its journal, brings together distinguished individuals from every ½eld of human endeavor. It was chartered in 1780 as a forum “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Now in its third century, the Academy, with its more than four thousand elected members, continues to provide intellectual leadership to meet the critical challenges facing our world. Dædalus Fall 2007 Subscription rates: Electronic only for non- Issued as Volume 136, Number 4 member individuals–$40; institutions–$99. Canadians add 6% gst. Print and electronic © 2007 by the American Academy for nonmember individuals–$44; institu- of Arts & Sciences tions–$110. Canadians add 6% gst. Outside Realizing the public interest: reflections on the United States and Canada add $23 for an elusive goal postage and handling. Prices subject to change © 2007 by Nathan Glazer without notice. Economic policy in the public interest © 2007 by Jagdish Bhagwati Institutional subscriptions are on a volume- Ethical politics: reality or illusion? year basis. All other subscriptions begin with © 2007 by Robert N. Bellah the next available issue. The lure & dangers of extremist rhetoric Single issues: current issues–$13; back issues © 2007 by Amy Gutmann for individuals–$13; back issues for institu- Spring’s So Sad, We Want to Know Why tions–$26. Outside the United States and © 2007 by Molly McQuade Canada add $5 per issue for postage and han- Dilly dling. Prices subject to change without notice. © 2007 by Mary Gordon Newsstand distribution by Ingram Periodicals Editorial of½ces: Dædalus, Norton’s Woods, Inc., 18 Ingram Blvd., La Vergne tn 37086. 136 Irving Street, Cambridge ma 02138. Phone: 800 627 6247. Phone: 617 491 2600. Fax: 617 576 5088. Email: [email protected]. Claims for missing issues will be honored free of charge if made within three months of the Library of Congress Catalog No. 12-30299 publication date of the issue. Claims may be isbn 0-87724-066-3 submitted to [email protected]. Mem- bers of the American Academy please direct all Dædalus publishes by invitation only and as- questions and claims to [email protected]. sumes no responsibility for unsolicited manu- scripts. The views expressed are those of the Advertising and mailing-list inquiries may be author of each article, and not necessarily of addressed to Marketing Department, mit the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, Cambridge ma 02142. Phone: 617 253 2866. Dædalus (issn 0011-5266; e-issn 1548-6192) Fax: 617 258 5028. Email: journals-info@ is published quarterly (winter, spring, summer, mit.edu. fall) by The mit Press, Cambridge ma 02142, for the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Permission to photocopy articles for internal An electronic full-text version of Dædalus is or personal use is granted by the copyright available from The mit Press. Subscription owner for users registered with the Copyright and address changes should be addressed to Clearance Center (ccc) Transactional Report- mit Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, ing Service, provided that the per copy fee Cambridge ma 02142. Phone: 617 253 2889; of $10 per article is paid directly to the ccc, us/Canada 800 207 8354. Fax: 617 577 1545. 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers ma 01923. The Email: [email protected]. fee code for users of the Transactional Report- ing Service is 0011-5266/07. Address all other Printed in the United States of America by inquiries to the Subsidiary Rights Manager, Cadmus Professional Communications, mit Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, Science Press Division, 300 West Chestnut Cambridge ma 02142. Phone: 617 253 2864. Street, Ephrata pa 17522. Fax: 617 258 5028. Email: journals-rights@ Postmaster: Send address changes to Dædalus, mit.edu. 238 Main Street, Suite 500, Cambridge ma The typeface is Cycles, designed by Sumner 02142. Periodicals postage paid at Boston ma Stone at the Stone Type Foundry of Guinda and at additional mailing of½ces. ca. Each size of Cycles has been separately designed in the tradition of metal types. E. J. Dionne Jr.

Why the public interest matters now

There are cycles in American politics at all–found it captured in Abbie Hoff- beyond those involving Republicans and man’s Steal This Book. Democrats, left and right, progressive The Port Huron Statement, the New and conservative. There are also poles in Left’s classic statement of principles is- our history de½ned by liberty and com- sued in 1962, almost perfectly captured munity, the individual and the collective, the era’s tension between individual- the public and the private. ism and community. At one point, it de- The interplay among these is not al- clared: “As a social system we seek the ways clear. The New Left in the 1960s establishment of a democracy of individ- was both powerfully communitarian ual participation, governed by two cen- and strongly individualistic. One re- tral aims: that the individual share in vealing New Left manifesto carried the those social decisions determining the quintessentially communitarian title, quality and direction of his life; that so- The Right to Say We, even as it is hard ciety be organized to encourage inde- to ½nd a more radically individualistic pendence in men and provide the media movement than the Yippies, who–to for their common participation.” I have the extent that they had a philosophy added the emphasis on “individual” and “independence” on the one hand, and E. J. Dionne Jr., a Fellow of the American Acad- “social” and “common” on the other, to emy since 2005, is a Senior Fellow in Governance suggest how deep the ambivalence ran in Studies at The Brookings Institution, University those years, even among the authors of a Professor in the Foundations of Democracy and document committed to drawing Ameri- Culture at the Georgetown Public Policy Insti- cans “out of isolation and into commu- tute, and a columnist at “The Washington Post.” nity.” He is the author of “Why Americans Hate Pol- The New Right was equally ambiguous itics” (1991), “They Only Look Dead: Why (or, perhaps, equally confused), encom- Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political passing both radical libertarianism and Era” (1996), “Stand Up Fight Back: Republican a communitarianism rooted in religion Toughs, Democratic Wimps, and the Politics of and tradition. The great contribution of Revenge” (2004), and “Souled Out: Faith and William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review Politics After the Religious Right” (forthcoming). to the conservative cause was the invention of ‘fusionism,’ a philosophy that © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts sought to square the circle between a & Sciences

Dædalus Fall 2007 5 E. J. love for individual freedom and a Burk- Bush era could call forth a new libertar- Dionne Jr. ean reverence for community norms and ian period, as Brink Lindsey argues in on the public traditional restraints. The New Left and his recent book, The Age of Abundance, interest the New Right were struggling in their especially in light of the declining con- distinctive ways with some of the same ½dence in our government’s capacities, contradictions. provoked by its dif½culties in waging But there have been some historical the war in Iraq and the weakness of its transitions involving rather clear bound- response to the devastation wrought aries between one era and the next. The by Hurricane Katrina. But there is even highly individualistic 1920s celebrated more ample evidence of a thirst for a private accumulation in economics, pri- new politics organized around the pub- vate achievement in culture, and private lic interest and the common good. pleasure in individual lives. The capital- The intuition that something new is ist, the jazz musician, and the flapper afoot is the inspiration behind the essays were all representative of the era. The commissioned for this collection. 1930s and 1940s were decidedly public decades involving collective struggle One plausible reading of the last half against the Depression and the rise of century (again, Lindsey is helpful on Fascism. The era produced labor organ- this) would see the nation as having izers, the art and writing of the wpa, gone through two individualist revo- and the old-fashioned heroes of Frank lutions. The ½rst, rooted in the 1960s, Capra movies. The transition from the entailed individualism in the personal 1920s to the 1930s and 1940s can be seen sphere: greater freedom on matters rein another way: Coolidge was as differ- lated to sexuality, family life, abortion, ent from fdr as Fitzgerald was from dress codes, and culture. The second hit Steinbeck. with full force in the 1980s and empha- Our current moment is more ambigu- sized economic freedom: low taxes, de- ous. The strong feeling of community regulation, heightened competition, and and patriotism inspired by the national greater inequality. David Brooks’s bour- reaction to the attacks of September 11, geois bohemians–the Bobos–are the 2001, has not fully dissipated. There has offspring of these twin revolutions. been a powerful assertion of state power The Bobos are not going away, and in pursuit of collective domestic securi- neither are the personal freedoms they ty, while on the right there has been a honor. But at the end of a long celebra- resurgence of religious communalism. tion of private pleasure and private striv- But if the Bush administration has been ing, there is much evidence of a return taken to task for its extravagant con½- to the public realm and a growing con- dence in our government’s collective ca- cern for public things. For nearly two pacities in Iraq, it has also faced steady decades, we have gone through a bumpy criticism for failing to ask much of citi- and somewhat erratic journey involving zens on behalf of our common life at a a search for the commons and a reen- time of national challenge. gagement with the public interest. As a result of these conflicting trends, The rise of communitarian thought in the ½nal months of the Bush administra- the late 1980s and early 1990s as a count- tion have already led to demands for a er to libertarianism was a sign of what new, and more robust, public philoso- was coming. The work of Michael San- phy. It is possible that the end of the del, Michael Walzer, Amitai Etzioni,

6 Dædalus Fall 2007 Philip Selznik, and William Galston old individualism that emphasized Why the all pointed toward something novel rights, and only rights. public interest mat- (or, perhaps, toward the rediscovery At the same time, historians and le- ters now of something old). Sandel’s formula- gal theorists like Cass Sunstein and Paul tion, that “when politics goes well, we Brest were embracing ‘civic republican- can know a good in common that we ism’ as an alternative–or supplement– cannot know alone,” stands as a clas- to liberalism. There was the search for sic rebuke to a radically individualistic ‘universalist’ values as a counter to ‘par- approach to public life. ticularism’ and ‘multiculturalism’ (one In The Resurgent Liberal, published in thinks of Todd Gitlin’s The Twilight of 1989, Robert Reich–later Bill Clinton’s Common Dreams). Political science re- Labor Secretary–argued that liberalism belled against ‘public choice,’ with its had grown weaker because in the post– emphasis on the individualistic and eco- New Deal period, it based itself on the nomic roots of public policy. There was values of “altruism and conciliation,” a resurgence in the idea of ‘the com- not on “the stronger precept of social monwealth,’ advanced in these pages solidarity” that undergirded Roosevelt’s by Gary Hart, and elsewhere by Harry experiment. “The liberalism of the New Boyte, who, along with Nancy Kari, also Deal and World War II partook of an in- spoke of the value of ‘public work,’ sure- clusive spirit of generosity toward our- ly a sister concept to ‘the public interest.’ selves,” Reich wrote. “Society was not Benjamin Barber’s concept of ‘strong seen as composed of us and them; it was democracy’ and his critique of consum- the realm of we.” A few years earlier, erism were part of this trend. So, too, writing in The Public Interest, Mark Lilla was the renewed interest among Cath- similarly claimed that the New Deal had olic progressives in ‘the common good’ been accepted “in no small part because and ‘social reconstruction.’ Roosevelt spoke to citizens, about citi- These developments occurred largely zens.” It “succeeded in capturing the on the left side of politics, but there was American imagination because it prom- a hankering toward mutuality–toward ised to be a great act of civic inclusion.” the public–on the right as well. As San- Lilla entitled his piece, “What is the Civ- del has pointed out, Ronald Reagan’s ic Interest?” policies were largely individualistic, par- Such were some of the influences on ticularly in the economic sphere, but Clinton. In all the talk about his love for “the most resonant part of his political ‘triangulation’ and his sensitivity to con- appeal” derived “from his skillful evoca- servative themes, it is sometimes forgot- tion of communal values such as family ten that Clinton’s New Democratic phi- and neighborhood, religion and patriot- losophy was in large part a critique of ism.” What set Reagan apart, Sandel has individualism. His trinity of values– argued, was “his ability to identify with “opportunity, responsibility, communi- Americans’ yearnings for a common life ty”–is only one part libertarian; the lat- of larger meanings on a smaller, less im- ter two words are communitarian in in- personal scale than that the procedural spiration. Talk about balancing ‘rights’ republic provides.” and ‘responsibilities’ trips off politi- John McCain’s 2000 primary cam- cians’ tongues (it certainly did off Clin- paign took off in large part because so ton’s). But the emphasis on responsibili- many citizens were inspired by his re- ty marked a signi½cant correction to the peated assertion that he had “stood up

Dædalus Fall 2007 7 E. J. against the special interests and for the here–particularly those by Galston and Dionne Jr. on public interest” and his call on citizens Adam Wolfson–suggest. The libertarian the public “to sacri½ce with others for a cause that right will always be suspicious that the interest is greater than self-interest . . . a cause public interest is simply a high-minded greater than themselves.” One can view rationalization for the expansion of state ‘compassionate conservatism’ as either power. Many on the left will inevitably a political gimmick or a sincere effort see it as a rationalization for acquies- by conservatives to construct a new cence to the desires of the powerful who approach to social policy–or some com- disguise their private advantage behind bination of the two. But it did reflect lofty ideals, and demand ‘sacri½ce’ from an awareness on the right (not unlike others but not from themselves. Many Buckley’s reach for fusionism) that en- skeptics of various orientations will trepreneurialism and unbridled individ- continue to see the public interest as an ualism were not enough. “The invisible empty phrase invoked cynically to justi- hand works many miracles,” a candi- fy any program that any given politician date named George W. Bush said in 1999, favors in a given week, month, or year. “but it cannot touch the human heart.” And even those who warm to the con- That same candidate asserted: “We are a cept will acknowledge that believing in nation of rugged individuals. But we are it does not necessarily settle any public also the country of the second chance, question. tied together by bonds of friendship and The issue, always, is: what is the pub- community and solidarity.” lic interest rightly understood? Reaching such an understanding requires debate And so our current rendezvous with not just about values, but also about the public interest and a renewal of the facts. It entails arguments about who commons has been a long time in the ‘the public’ is and what its interests real- making. ly are. It decidedly requires debate over Bush recognized its power before he how responsibilities for achieving the became president–and then accelerated public interest are divided between in- the demand for it by his own failures. dividuals and the community, between The patriotic spirit bred by 9/11 (it still the government and private actors. exists, despite the partisan rancor that “In the long run,” James Q. Wilson has grown around the war in Iraq and once declared, “the public interest de- the ‘war on terror’) combines with a pends on private virtue.” That is cer- thirst for public solutions to public prob- tainly true. But to what extent does the lems (health care and pensions, rising promotion of private virtue depend inequality and economic insecurity) to on public action? Which economic endow the idea of ‘the public interest’ systems, which government policies, with a new energy. Political corruption which ways of organizing the relation- and government incompetence provide ship between work and family life, what some might see as an anodyne con- which approaches to taxation and reg- cept with a populist edge. The public in- ulation, which rules and norms create terest looks very attractive indeed when the circumstances in which private vir- it is contrasted with ‘special interests,’ tue, and thus the public interest, can be unjust privilege, and inside dealing. advanced? None of this has rendered the idea The prospect that our nation might uncontroversial, as many of the essays embark on such a debate is bracing. It

8 Dædalus Fall 2007 is so much more promising than argu- Why the public in- ments about who will expand or shrink terest mat- the federal government, about who is ters now tough or soft in foreign affairs, about who is repressive or permissive in their moral attitudes. Paradoxically, the very cynicism that our political system has encouraged is creating a demand for a more exacting standard in public life. There is substantial evidence that the rising generation, while certainly libertarian in many of its social attitudes, places a higher premium than many of their forebears on community service and public engagement. Theirs may be the generation of the public interest. “The great object of the institution of civil government,” President John Quin- cy Adams wrote in his First Annual Mes- sage in 1825, “is the improvement of the condition of those who are parties to the social compact, and no government can accomplish . . . the lawful ends of its institution but in proportion as it improves the conditions of those over whom it is established.” Adams’s vision was expansive. He urged “laws promoting the improvement of agriculture, commerce and manufactures, the cultivation and encouragement of the mechanic and of the elegant arts, the advancement of literature, and the progress of the sciences, ornamental and profound.” And Adams insisted that to refrain from exercising government’s powers “for the bene½t of the people themselves would be to hide in the earth the talent committed to our charge–would be treachery to the most sacred of trusts.” Adams’s view was controversial at the time–he failed to win reelection–and it is controversial still. Yet he provided the country then, and provides us still, with the right starting point for considering what the public interest is, and how we should pursue it.

Dædalus Fall 2007 9 William A. Galston

An old debate renewed: the politics of the public interest

Writing in 2006, Michael Tomasky– the nation and opening the door to a a well-known liberal intellectual and generation of conservative dominance. former editor of The American Prospect– Tomasky’s article struck a chord. The created a stir by urging the Democratic proliferation of earmarks–narrowly fo- Party to embrace a politics of the com- cused line items in the federal budget– mon good. Decent and forward-look- suggested that ‘special interests’ were ing governance is only possible, he ar- running amok, sealing corrupt bargains gued, when citizens are called upon to with venal legislators at the people’s ex- “look beyond their own self-interest and pense. The common interest or good of- work for a greater common interest”; fered a standard for judging and repudi- only then can they believe they are con- ating these excesses. On a higher plane, tributing to a project larger than them- a renewed politics of the common good selves. In Tomasky’s narrative, it is not promised an antidote to ever-increasing dif½cult to understand why Democrats political discord and polarization. And a came to replace such a politics, which new generation of young adults was en- dominated the New Deal era, with an tering the political arena, disenchanted emphasis on individual and group rights, with the politics their baby-boom par- tolerance, diversity, and social justice. ents had bequeathed them but searching Nor was it inevitable that these two tra- nonetheless for a new kind of practical ditions had to clash. But in practice they political idealism. (Many of them rallied did, diminishing the capacity of the around Barack Obama, attracted by his Democratic Party to speak on behalf of invocation of one America as an alternative to warring Red and Blue states.) In advancing his thesis, Tomasky William A. Galston, a Fellow of the American gestured toward political philosophy: Academy since 2004, is a Senior Fellow in Gov- “[T]his idea of citizens sacri½cing for ernance Studies at The Brookings Institution. and participating in the creation of a Among his many publications are “Liberal Plu- common good has a name: civic repub- ralism” (2002), “The Practice of Liberal Plu- licanism.” He cited Jean-Jacques Rous- ralism” (2005), and “Public Matters” (2005). seau’s Social Contract, James Madison’s juxtaposition of self-serving factions to © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts the public good, and Harvard theorist & Sciences Michael Sandel’s lament for a vanished

10 Dædalus Fall 2007 political economy of citizenship, cov- thing, norms quite another. Scholars An old debate ered over by consumerism and Keynes- could study facts objectively, but only by renewed ian economics. Overlooked in this nar- rigorously excluding norms (including rative, however, was a more recent epi- their own ‘biases’) from the sphere of sode in American political science–a inquiry. The then-popular philosophical debate over the ‘public interest’ stretch- doctrine of logical positivism (of which ing from the mid-1950s through about A. J. Ayer’s Language, Truth, and Logic was 1970–during which many of these issues the canonical text) nourished this view. were discussed. The vicissitudes of that The positivist creed taught that only two concept cast a new light on our current kinds of propositions were meaningful– situation. logical (that is to say, tautological) and empirical. To the extent that morality Consider the views of four eminent made claims beyond de½nitions and ob- political scientists, all writing in the ear- servable facts, its assertions were literally 1960s. After declaring that “there is ly meaningless. no public interest theory worthy of the Which did not mean random or with- name,” Glendon Schubert rejected the out signi½cance, however. Logical posi- view that there could or should be such tivism ½t snugly with emotivism, the a theory. Frank Sorauf dismissed prior thesis that morality expresses aspects discussion of the topic as “semantic of individual subjectivity. According chaos” and argued that participants did to philosopher Wayne Leys, emotivists not even agree on what they were trying contended that one component of many to de½ne: “a goal, a process, or a myth.” words is “an emotion, attitude, or sen- For their part, Robert Dahl and Charles timent that . . . has been associated with Lindblom contended that the public in- the words in the experience of the per- terest “is usually left totally unde½ned son [using them].” These emotive mean- .. . . Often enough a precise examination ings differ in kind from the “objective would show that it can mean nothing or factual meanings on which scienti½c more than whatever happens to be the agreement can be achieved.” The public speaker’s own view as to a desirable interest, then, was an empty conceptual public policy.” All agreed that there was vessel into which individuals could pour no remedy: the concept was so vague, their own emotional meaning. From this so contested, and so mired in subjectiv- standpoint, ‘X is in the public interest’ is ity and partisanship as to admit of no a covert, if often rhetorically effective, objective and meaningful speci½cation. way of saying ‘I like X.’ Gesturing toward Gilbert and Sullivan, The experience of totalitarianism rein- Sorauf suggested that the public interest forced this skepticism. Antidemocrats was worthy of inclusion on a list of am- on both the left and the right had ap- biguous words and phrases that “never pealed to organic conceptions of socie- would be missed.” ty. Individuals were parts of a greater These sentiments are representative whole, and the good of the whole repre- of a broad vein of skepticism that had sented a harmony of interests. Conflict swept over political science. The post- within a society was a disease; the cure war ‘behavioral revolution’ sought to was a purgative administered by public reconstruct the academic study of poli- authority on behalf of the body politic. tics along the lines of the natural sci- Understandably, the defenders of liberal ences and economics. Facts were one democracy reacted by questioning the

Dædalus Fall 2007 11 William A. possibility of a social whole, however interests of the community as a whole. Galston on understood. There was, then, no ‘public’ In this way, the interest-group liberals of the public of which an interest could be predicated; the 1950s and 1960s blunted the critical interest to insist otherwise was a dangerous mys- moral edge of the Founders’ constitu- ti½cation. There were only individuals tional realism. and aggregations of individuals, each Political practitioners–and academics with interests that conflicted with oth- outside political science–were on the ers. Far from being a disease, conflict whole far less skeptical. The rise of the was inherent in social life. The absence administrative state entailed a substan- of overt conflict was evidence, not of tial delegation of decision making to ex- harmony, but rather of repression. ecutive-branch bureaucracies and ad- To invoke the public interest was also ministrative agencies. How were their to suggest the possibility of concern for products–rules and regulations–to be society as a whole. Many political scien- assessed? Inherent in the act of delega- tists doubted that such motivation was tion was a gap between the letter of the a human possibility, and most were law and administrative power. Simply sure that it was without force in the real put, the drafters of rules and regulations world of politics. Instead, they argued, enjoyed substantial discretionary power. society was divided into a myriad of in- A wide range of decisions would be con- terest groups, all jostling for the greatest sistent with the underlying law, which possible share of advantages, as each de- therefore could not be used to choose ½ned them. The underlying assumption, among them. or hope, was that interest-group compe- One way of narrowing the gap was tition was to politics as market competi- to specify administrative procedures, tion was to the economy. (This concep- which came ultimately to include arenas tion raised, without resolving, the prob- of public participation. If a proposed lem of specifying the political equivalent rule complied with established proce- of economic ef½ciency.) In any event, dures and was not obviously inconsis- ‘interest-group liberalism’ became the tent with the underlying statute, it en- dominant public philosophy. joyed presumptive validity. But this pro- During this period, not surprisingly, cedural norm did not capture what con- Madison’s The Federalist, No. 10, was of- scientious agency of½cials understood ten cited. It took a leading critic of inter- themselves to be doing when drafting est-group liberalism, Theodore Lowi, the rules in the ½rst place. While aware to point out the crucial bowdlerization: that proposed rules would have to with- Madison had de½ned the group (“fac- stand scrutiny from stakeholders and tion”) as “a number of citizens, whether the general public, they claimed to be amounting to a majority or minority of guided by concern for the long-term in- the whole, who are united and actuated terests of the community as a whole. by some common impulse of passion, or Indeed, many enabling statutes mandat- of interest, adverse to the rights of other ed such concern by requiring regulators citizens, or to the permanent and aggre- to act “in the public interest.” If the con- gate interests of the community.” Mod- cept was as empty as political scientists ern political science, Lowi observed, had said, how were administrators supposed taken over the ½rst part of Madison’s to comply with it? de½nition while discarding his distinc- This problem could be, and was, gen- tion between group aims and the lasting eralized. Richard Flathman, a philoso-

12 Dædalus Fall 2007 pher influenced by Ludwig Wittgen- stablishing the possibility of a coher- An old E debate stein, offered a characterization of po- ent account of the public interest was renewed litical life of which normative judgments far from showing that such an account were an integral part: “Determining jus- actually existed. In a remarkable effort ti½able governmental policy in the face to clarify the concept, two philosophers of conflict and diversity is central to the –Wayne A. R. Leys and Charner Perry– political order; it is a problem which is surveyed seventy-½ve lawyers, philos- never solved in any ½nal sense but which ophers, and social scientists. They re- we are constantly trying to solve . . . . We ported a radical heterogeneity of views. are free to abandon the concept [of the Some respondents held that the public public interest], but if we do so we will interest is purely formal: “Whatever is simply have to wrestle with the prob- the object of duly authorized, govern- lems under a different heading.” mental action.” Others offered substan- One of the many ironies of Ameri- tive criteria: variously, the public inter- can intellectual history is that logical est as the outcome of appropriate proce- positivism came to dominate social sci- dures, as the maximization of individu- ence at the very moment that philoso- al interests, or as a normative concept of phers were rejecting it. W. V. Quine’s public order not reducible to any aggre- famous 1951 article, “Two Dogmas of gation of individual interests. Empiricism,” turned the tools of analyt- Summarizing not only the results of ic philosophy against the foundations the survey but also his own views, Leys of the positivist creed. Wittgenstein’s wondered why it was necessary to late masterwork, Philosophical Investiga- choose among these views. The public tions, ½rst published in 1953 after his interest, he said, might well be multi- death, undermined the positivist ac- dimensional: governance in the public count of language his early work helped interest will be motivated by equal con- create. The pragmatic tradition of C. S. cern for the interests of all, respect for Peirce and William James continued in fair procedures, and a norm underlying the writings of John Dewey and inspired every vision of a good society–namely, a steady counterpoint to positivist dual- aversion to needless conflict. To be sure, isms that flowered in the postanalytic these dimensions will not always point writings of Richard Rorty. in the same direction; in making spe- This was the context in which Flath- ci½c choices, it will often be necessary man was able to insist that normative to strike a balance (or establish priori- concepts such as the public interest were ties) among them, an inherently con- not only practically necessary but also testable process. But to say that the pub- philosophically possible. Writing in lic interest, so conceived, cannot resolve 1966, he inveighed against the view, all political controversies is not to say common among social scientists, that that it cannot clarify them and help es- “Logical Positivism reigns supreme in tablish the range of acceptable resolu- philosophy . . . . This belief is mistaken, tions. and to dispel it is important to the gener- Nonetheless, each of Leys’s dimen- al issue of the status of value theory in sions raises complex problems. Consid- political science and the social sciences er what might seem a straightforward generally [as well as] to the particular idea–the public interest as maximizing problems of theory about the public in- the aggregate of individual interests, terest . . . . ” with the interests of each individual

Dædalus Fall 2007 13 William A. given equal weight. This idea guided ical compensation and will hold out for Galston on more than 150 years of utilitarian philos- the real thing if they can. the public ophy, not to mention decades of welfare Suppose they are made whole. This interest economics. But writing in nomos, the leads to a second objection. As Musgrave annual publication of the American So- himself observes, the criterion presup- ciety for Political and Legal Philosophy, poses that individuals assess their well- Richard Musgrave (a prominent wel- being in absolute terms only and not rel- fare economist) explained its fatal flaw: ative to one another. For if there is a rel- “Traditionally, economists have tended ative component, someone else’s gain to answer these problems [of determin- may worsen my position by expanding ing solutions that are ef½cient, and thus the gap between us. Those who criticize in the public interest] by arguments in- open markets on the ground that they volving interpersonal comparison of increase domestic inequalities are using utilities. The ef½cient solution was that a contestable standard. But what is the which maximizes total utility, where A’s basis for deeming it more contestable gain in utility exceeds B’s loss . . . . [But] than the alternative, such that the latter the ‘new welfare economics’ . . . has re- represents a more adequate conception jected the possibility of interpersonal of the public interest? utility comparisons.” It thus becomes The third objection goes deepest: the impossible to talk about maximizing no-harm criterion assumes that the sta- utility across a group of individuals. tus quo is itself morally acceptable. But In place of aggregation, economists as the philosopher Virginia Held pointed have embraced (some would say retreat- out in The Public Interest and Individual In- ed to) a different conception of ef½cien- terests (1970), “If the initial distribution cy and the public interest–namely, is highly unjust, it may be that one courses of action that make some indi- would wish to consider it in the public viduals better off and no one worse off. interest for some, in fact, to lose . . . . ” A But this approach is no less flawed. In fair comparison between the status quo the ½rst place, few, if any, public actions and alternatives to it cannot begin by will ever satisfy this criterion. While it awarding current conditions a morally is reasonable to suppose that voluntary privileged status. contractual arrangements between A When we turn our attention to Leys’s and B leave the consenting parties better second dimension of public interest– off, or at least no worse off, it is at best fair procedures–parallel dif½culties remotely possible that individuals in a emerge. Procedural fairness is an ab- society would unanimously consent to stract concept that admits of a large a single course of action. (perhaps inde½nite) number of speci½- This fact has led some to propose a cations, each of which encodes some fallback position: a policy can be con- understanding of the principles and sidered to be in the public interest if goods at stake. Procedural de½nitions the winners it produces could fully com- of the public interest will be sensitive pensate the losers, while still leaving to the speci½cation of procedures–ma- the winners better off than under the joritarianism, constitutional democracy, status quo ante. (Trade agreements that deliberative democracy, even the output increase gdp are often justi½ed in this of rule-governed bureaucracies. In law manner.) But the losers are unlikely to and ordinary politics–as well as in theo- derive much satisfaction from hypothet- retical debates about deliberative de-

14 Dædalus Fall 2007 mocracy, public reason, and expertise– Lippmann’s account was not proce- An old debate arguments about procedures cannot be dural; it was not particularly democrat- renewed disentangled from substantive consid- ic; it was certainly not pluralistic. It sug- erations. And if we try to short-circuit gested that all right-thinking, rightly these arguments by stipulating adher- motivated individuals (“prudent men”) ence to ‘established’ procedures, we re- would converge on roughly the same peat the mistake of privileging the status conclusions as to what the public inter- quo. est requires. Those who disagreed with the prudent men were confused, either This brings us to substantive accounts. about the human conditions that de- In the fall of 1965, Daniel Bell and Ir- ½ned the public interest or about the ving Kristol launched a quarterly jour- best means for promoting those condi- nal, The Public Interest. They acknowl- tions. Lippmann tacitly distinguished edged the obvious objections: totali- between true and false understandings tarians and autocrats had cloaked their of interests, individual and collective. abuses in lofty solidaristic language, While it is hard to dismiss this distinc- while prominent social scientists de- tion altogether, it raised the risk of abu- nied both the existence of interests tran- sive authority against which antitotali- scending individuals or groups and the tarian theorists such as Isaiah Berlin motivation to go beyond one’s own in- were warning. terests. Lippmann’s thesis glossed over the Bell and Kristol were undaunted. loose-jointedness of concepts such as At the very least, they argued, the pub- rationality. There were two dif½culties, lic interest requires policies based on reflecting the two senses of the term. In knowledge rather than prefabricated statements of the form ‘X would be in ideological accounts of social reality. the public interest,’ X usually stands for And they unabashedly endorsed Wal- an action–a proposed policy–rather ter Lippmann’s de½nition: “The pub- than an end-state of affairs, and is assert- lic interest may be presumed to be what ed to be a means to attaining that end. men would choose if they saw clearly, But given the uncertainty of human af- thought rationally, acted disinterested- fairs, equally rational individuals may ly and benevolently.” Seeing clearly disagree whether X, as opposed to Y or meant realistically assessing basic facts Z, is the course of action most likely to and structures, undistorted by passion, achieve the desired result. Rational dis- hope, or preconception. Thinking ra- agreement abounds in the realm of ends tionally meant understanding both in- as well: even if individuals agree on a strumental relations (if I do X, the like- catalog of human goods, they may dis- ly consequence will be Y) and substan- agree about their relative weight or pri- tive relations (A is more urgent, or im- ority. Still, it cannot be denied that Lipp- portant, than B). Acting disinterestedly mann was onto something: whatever the meant giving no more weight to one’s public interest may be, the intellectual own interests (or to the interests of one’s and moral virtues he enumerated serve family, tribe, coreligionists, or fellow as necessary if not suf½cient conditions partisans) than to the interests of others, for discerning and promoting it. And if while acting benevolently meant af½r- these conditions do not de½ne a unique matively caring about meeting others’ conception of the public interest, surely needs and concerns. they screen out many misguided options

Dædalus Fall 2007 15 William A. and focus our attention on a limited set ly, among political communities, and Galston on of worthier choices. among cultural and religious constella- the public Still, one might object, if we are going tions as well. But even if the public in- interest to place the public interest at the center terest lacks the universality and binding- of our social thought, it would be nice to ness that are thought to characterize hu- have a clearer picture of what it is. Dur- man rights, it may nonetheless remain a ing the 1960s, many thinkers took a run meaningful and useful standard for pub- at substantive speci½city. In his preco- lic life. ciously comprehensive tome, Political Argument (1965), Brian Barry de½ned the In the years after 1970, discussion of the public interest as “those interests which public interest subsided. Within acade- people have in common qua members of mia, doubts rose about the possibility of the public.” This approach has a venera- the meaningful aggregation of individ- ble history. Thomas Hobbes famously ual interests. Utilitarianism, which for wrote in Leviathan that “so long as a man decades had been a philosophical default is in the condition of mere nature, which position, lost credibility. Meanwhile, is a condition of war, private appetite is theorists such as Kenneth Arrow ques- the measure of good and evil: and conse- tioned the cogency of utilitarianism’s quently all men agree on this, that peace longtime political analogue–majoritari- is good, and therefore also the way or an voting. Under many circumstances, it means of peace . . . . ” This hard-edged turned out, there simply was no stable or account of common interests is a bit preferred majority; winners were deter- parsimonious for modern tastes. Edgar mined by voting rules and procedures Bodenheimer, a thoughtful professor of rather than individual preferences. Def- law, spoke for many others in proposing erence to public majorities was at least a fuller conception of common interests plausible. But was it even possible to at- as “a well-ordered and productive com- tach moral meaning to decisions of the munity in which everybody has an op- House Rules Committee? portunity to develop his capabilities to Nor was it clear that the public inter- the fullest.” Unpacking this terse de½ni- est deserved a privileged position as the tion, we ½nd the following elements: so- polestar of political morality. In an influ- cial peace, the rule of law, a productive ential 1958 article, C. W. Cassinelli stat- economy in which the means of self-deed, “The public interest . . . is taken to velopment are widely shared, and the comprise the ultimate ethical goal of po- liberty needed to develop individual ca- litical relationships, and institutions and pabilities in one’s own way. practices are to be judged desirable or Citizens in liberal democratic socie- undesirable to the extent that they con- ties were (and are) likely to agree. But tribute to or detract from the realization Bodenheimer went on to argue that hu- of the public interest.” Indeed, he con- man beings everywhere were converging tinued, “that the concept has this partic- on his view. Whatever may have been ular value connotation is well enough the case in 1962, it is now harder to argue understood, and few problems arise at that Bodenheimer’s irenic and secular this level.” But thirteen years later, at account captures universal human aspi- the beginning of his magnum opus, rations. We may be forced to conclude John Rawls declared with equal certain- that the content of the public interest ty: “Justice is the ½rst virtue of social varies, essentially rather than accidental- institutions, as truth is of systems of

16 Dædalus Fall 2007 thought. A theory however elegant and But among activists and left-leaning An old debate economical must be rejected or revised intellectuals, the suspicion spread that renewed if it is untrue; likewise laws and institu- whatever their content, unitary stan- tions no matter how ef½cient and well- dards always repressed diversity and arranged must be reformed or abolished that objectivity was nothing more than if they are unjust.” Many philosophers the subjectivity of the powerful. In reali- who disagreed with Rawls about the ty, they argued, there was an inde½nite content of justice agreed with him about number of possible perspectives, none its primacy. of which could rightly claim all-things- This shift reflected broader currents in considered priority over the others. But American society. Many critics came to because the perspectives of the power- believe that a focus on the public interest ful had dominated politics for so long, –whatever one meant by that–would it was high time to listen to those of the perpetuate our nation’s oppression of subordinated. The point was not wheth- overlooked minorities. Standards such er doing so would serve the public in- as equality and individual rights seemed terest, the cogency of which perspec- better suited to articulate outrage and tival pluralism called into question, but prompt recti½cation. And while the pub- whether the voiceless would at long last lic interest was something the holders be heard. of power served (or failed to serve), dis- Arguments of this sort set off a clam- senters could demand equality, or rights, orous debate that reshaped American or justice for themselves and work ac- politics for a generation. But there are tively to obtain them. These standards signs that this long cycle is coming to were empowering, while the public in- an end and that there may be renewed terest appeared at best elitist and re- appetite for a politics of common pur- mote. pose. It is in this context that the public And not without reason. The public interest, along with allied ideas such as interest was linked, historically and con- the common good, may well receive a ceptually, to the administrative state, new hearing. This opportunity poses a which as the home of ‘establishment lib- challenge: Is it possible to learn from eralism’ came under attack from both past dif½culties and frame a conception the left and the right. The New Left ar- of the public interest that is both defen- gued passionately against bureaucracy sible and useful? and for participatory democracy. And if Perhaps experience can lead us to that dream was unattainable, then sec- agree on some orienting propositions: ond-best was the proliferation of pro- 1. The public interest points us toward grams not only targeted toward, but al- features of a speci½c, demarcated en- so controlled by, different groups. Any- semble of individuals, not to global thing, it seemed, was better than rule by humanity as a whole. bureaucrats. Nonparticipation was not the only ob- 2. That ensemble is not just an aggre- jection to the administrative state. Bu- gation of individuals. Rather, a pub- reaucracy embodies not only structure lic is constituted (sometimes tacitly) and hierarchy but also a drive for objec- through a particular political form that tivity–the restriction of arbitrary dis- rests on speci½c assumptions and pur- cretionary power in favor of rules with sues certain ends rather than others. clear empirical standards of compliance. The public interest derives content, at

Dædalus Fall 2007 17 William A. least in part, in reference to those as- munity as an association intended to Galston on sumptions and ends, from which it persist across generations. It is in that the public follows that the substance of the pub- spirit that the Preamble to the U.S. interest lic interest may differ from communi- Constitution speaks of extending the ty to community. blessings of liberty beyond the founding generation to “our posterity.” Après 3. The term ‘public’ refers not only to nous le deluge is in principle inconsis- a formed group of individuals, but tent with the public interest. also to the dimension of their lives in which they relate to and affect 8. We typically invoke the public interest one another to a signi½cant degree. as a norm when binding, authoritative There are aspects of life, often called action is at stake: a proposed govern- ‘private,’ that lie outside the zone in ment policy promotes, or fails to pro- which considerations of the public mote, the public interest. But we can interest apply. The manner in which also judge the acts of other influential the public is constituted helps locate social agents–such as foundations, the perimeter of that zone. corporations, and unions–against this standard. 4.The ‘public interest’ typically denotes some broad advantage of the commu- 9.We are especially inclined to invoke nity considered internally. We use a the public interest as a critical norm different location–the ‘national inter- when we see narrow groups (the ‘spe- est’–to denote the broad advantage of cial interests’) pursuing their own ad- the community in its external circum- vantage without concern for the rest stances. of the community. But this opposition between the part and the whole is not 5. Human beings cannot live alone and a comprehensive template, because it can only live together by attending to, is possible that the actions of even an and to some extent accommodating, overwhelming majority can be incon- the interests of others. A stable and sistent with the public interest. peaceful society, and the means to it, is therefore a part of the public inter- There is no guarantee that reflection est. These means will typically include guided by these propositions will always institutions and decision-rules recog- –or usually–point to a single clearly nized as legitimate, an ensemble of preferable course of action. Experience shared beliefs and traits of character, suggests that when multiple important and bonds of truce and con½dence public goods are at stake, reasonable and among members of the community. well-informed individuals will disagree about their relative priority or weight, 6.While we cannot determine the pub- and also about the most effective and ef- lic interest through an aggregative cal- ½cient means for promoting them. Like culus, we can certainly say that search- other high-order norms, the public in- ing for the public interest requires us terest cannot wholly overcome the un- to consider the interests of all, not just certainties of deliberating in the real a part, even if the part constitutes the world. majority of the community. Nor is there reason to believe that the 7. The public interest has a temporal di- public interest constitutes the single mension that views the political com- highest ethical standard of public life.

18 Dædalus Fall 2007 Not that any other norm does either. An old debate We will often be challenged to choose renewed among, or balance, competing norms with moral weight: rights, liberty, equality, justice, and the public interest, among others. We may, if we choose, obscure these tensions through de½nition- al ½at, for example, by denying that any action that violates individual rights or contradicts justice can be considered consistent with the public interest. But whatever we say, the same hard choices will remain. None of this means that the concept of the public interest is either vacuous or useless. Like the common good, it has a critical edge and rhetorical force. It does not require us to ignore our individual interests, but it invites us to re½ne and pursue them in a larger context–a social world in which others have claims different from, but no less weighty than, our own. It seeks to summon what Abra- ham Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature.” While the public interest points toward better political practice, by itself it can neither de½ne nor achieve it. Like the common good, the public interest can help us understand and seek a politics of common purpose. But it can be useful only if those who invoke it do so with a clear sense of its limitations when applied in practice, and with the frank acknowledgement that no normative category can overcome the empirical un- certainties and moral risks of acting in the real world. It is always right to ask how the public interest may be promot- ed. But that is not a question that social scientists or philosophers or theologians can answer. The answer is worked out in the thrust and parry of political competition. Not better theory, but rather better practice, is the remedy for the ills that befall the body politic.

Dædalus Fall 2007 19 Adam Wolfson

Public interest lost?

When the editors of Dædalus invited pect that without such a notion politi- me, along with several others, to write cians and government of½cials would an essay on the subject of the public in- ½nd it dif½cult to perform their jobs. But terest, I will admit I had some qualms. what could the public interest possibly For many years I edited a journal with mean to an intellectual? If he even both- Nathan Glazer and Irving Kristol by ers to think about the idea it is proba- that very name, and so it was not whol- bly to debunk it. What good would come ly unfamiliar terrain. Yet what would from only more such debunking? Per- be the result, I wondered, of asking in- haps, though, I am being unfair to my tellectuals, of all people, to write on fellow intellectuals. We live, after all, in the subject–and in particular of asking uncertain and perilous times, times in them whether the thing even exists? which older, long-forgotten ideals may Was that not inviting the fox to guard once again seem pressingly relevant. the henhouse? To the average American And so perhaps the editors of Dædalus the idea of the public interest is, I sus- were right to call for a reconsideration pect, perfectly sensible; and I also sus- of this invaluable ideal. However that may be, we need to be- Adam Wolfson has served as editor of “The Pub- gin from where we left off. The public lic Interest” and consulting editor of “Commen- interest as an ideal last received a full tary” and has written for, among others, “The airing among scholars in the 1950s and American Scholar,” “The Weekly Standard,” 1960s. I will turn my attention ½rst to “The National Review,” “The Review of Politics,” this earlier discussion: I will try to cap- and “The Wall Street Journal.” He is a visiting ture the flavor of this debate while sug- assistant professor in Claremont McKenna Col- gesting what may have gone wrong. It lege’s Washington Program and an Adjunct Fel- will be the burden of my argument that low at the Hudson Institute. The views and opin- for all the rigor of their analysis, intel- ions expressed in this article are those of the au- lectuals are in fact ill-equipped to under- thor alone and do not represent those of either the stand the public interest–in contrast to National Endowment for the Humanities or the America’s leading statesmen who live U.S. Government. and breathe it. Thus I will next cast my eye further © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts back in time to consider the reflections & Sciences of James Madison and Abraham Lincoln

20 Dædalus Fall 2007 on the public interest. The question of What especially preoccupied the Public interest the public interest in America surely be- scholars of this era was the question of lost? gins in some sense with Madison’s for- de½nition: how to demarcate and clas- mulation of it; but notwithstanding the sify the various theories of the public vaunted reputation of his analysis as pre- interest. These various de½nitions need sented in The Federalist, No. 10, Madison not detain us here except to take note arguably failed to offer an adequate con- of how schematic and abstract many of ception, which is why I will turn next to them were. Edward Ban½eld came up Abraham Lincoln. It seems to me that with ½ve differing conceptions–two Lincoln provided the Archimedean point unitary ones (“organismic” and “com- for all thinking about the public interest munalist”) and three individualistic in America, and that our current notions ones (“utilitarian,” “quasi-utilitarian,” of it pale beside his more robust under- and “quali½ed individualistic”)1; Frank standing. Sorauf also came up with ½ve–“commonly-held value,” “the wise or superi- When the subject of the public inter- or interest,” “moral imperative,” “a bal- est last received the close scrutiny of ance of interest,” and “unde½ned”2; our intellectuals, in the 1950s and 1960s, Glendon Schubert with three–“ratio- it did not fare so well. Many of the lead- nalist,” “idealist,” and “realist”3; and ing lights of the day weighed in on the Virginia Held with three as well–“pre- question, including Harold Lasswell, ponderance theories,” “common inter- Herbert Storing, Brian Barry, Anthony est theories,” and “unitary concep- Downs, Charles Frankel, James Buchan- tions.”4 an, Gordon Tullock, Edward Ban½eld, Beyond the attempt at classi½cation, and Robert Dahl. Numerous scholarly the intellectuals of these decades grap- books were published on the subject, pled with the more fundamental ques- under such titles as The Public Interest tion of whether such a thing as the pub- and Individual Interests (Virginia Held), lic interest even existed. On this ques- The Public Interest: A Critique of the Theo- tion both sides were argued, but looking ry of a Political Concept (Glendon Schu- back it does seem that the predominant bert), The Public Interest: An Essay Con- cerning the Normative Discourse of Politics (Richard Flathman), and Politics and the 1 Edward Ban½eld, “Supplement: Note on Conceptual Scheme,” in Martin Meyerson Public Interest in the Seventeenth Century and Edward C. Ban½eld, Politics, Planning and (John A. W. Gunn). The subject also be- the Public Interest: The Case of Public Housing in came the focus of collaborative scholarly Chicago (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1955), 322– efforts. In 1959 the philosophers Wayne 329. A. R. Leys and Charner Perry, after re- 2 Frank J. Sorauf, “The Public Interest Recon- ceiving written input from, among oth- sidered,” The Journal of Politics 19 (4) (Novem- ers, Horace Kallen, Richard McKeon, Jo- ber 1957): 618–624. seph Cropsey, Peter Drucker, and Frank Knight, put together a scholarly mono- 3 Glendon Schubert, “Is There A Public Inter- nomos graph, titled Philosophy and the Public In- est?” in V: The Public Interest, ed. Carl J. Friedrich (New York: Atherton Press, 1962). terest, that sought to clarify the concept. nomos A few years later, , edited by Carl 4 Virginia Held, The Public Interest and Indi- J. Friedrich, dedicated a volume of essays vidual Interests (New York: Basic Books, Inc., to the meaning of the public interest. 1970).

Dædalus Fall 2007 21 Adam view was that the public interest was at of the answer is to be found in the new Wolfson on most a noble lie, one that was, however, intellectual currents of the day, from be- the public no longer needed. Some of a more skep- havioralism in political science, to the interest tical bent found the problem to be in the fact/value distinction in sociology, to fact that the public interest could not be value relativism in political philosophy. known; others in that it could be known Another more prosaic part is to be to be a sham. Anthony Downs seemed found in the participants in this earlier to speak for many when he wrote in 1962 discussion. They were almost exclusive- that “it soon becomes apparent that no ly scholars, in particular professional general agreement exists about wheth- philosophers and social scientists; thus er the term has any meaning at all, or, if it was an analytically rigorous discus- if it has, what the meaning is, which sion, it was also an oddly parochial one. speci½c actions are in the public inter- Philosophical inquiries into the mean- est and which are not, and how to dis- ing of the public interest can be helpful, tinguish between them.”5 Or, as Robert even necessary, but it is also the case Dahl wrote in a letter to Leys and Perry that academics may not be in the best in the preparation of their monograph: position to handle this question. Aca- “There is little philosophical mileage to demics are–and now I will paint in ad- be gained from using the term at all.”6 mittedly overly broad strokes–more re- The assessment of Frank Sorauf seemed moved from the public’s business than to capture the general tenor of senti- most other Americans, spending the ment: “The term is too burdened with bulk of their time in the quiet of their multiple meanings for valuable use as a studies writing books for their fellow tool of political analysis,” and is anyway academics. To the extent that academics nothing but a “myth.”7 interact with their fellow Americans it Certainly, there is a place for such the- is in the college lecture hall–where they orizing and questioning; too often, how- mingle with teenagers mainly (hardly ever, the prevailing analysis seemed un- a representative sample of the public). fettered from the reality of political life Few academics spend much if any time at it is in fact lived. Why had the idea of in government. The academic aspires to the public interest become so opaque, the virtues of the critic or gadfly, less so even nonsensical, to mid-twentieth-cen- those of the citizen. We need our critics tury intellectuals? Why had it become and gadflies, to be sure, but one can see so easy for them to conceive of self-in- how the modern intellectual’s alienation terest or the interest of groups (“interest from public life may in some respects group theory”), but not the interest of taint his view of the public interest. the whole (however conceived)? Part If we wish to reopen the question of the public interest, therefore, we face 5 As quoted by Held, The Public Interest and Indi- a number of obstacles. We would have vidual Interests, 2. to begin by confronting and overcom- ing the philosophic developments that 6 As quoted in Wayne A. R. Leys and Char- stymied interlocutors in the 1950s and ner M. Perry, Philosophy and the Public Interest 1960s; it is worth noting that these (Chicago: Committee to Advance Original developments have become with the Work in Philosophy, 1959), 17. passage of time only more ½rmly en- 7 Sorauf, “The Public Interest Reconsidered,” trenched in the academy. Meanwhile, 624, 638. other more recent intellectual trends,

22 Dædalus Fall 2007 such as postmodernism and multicultur- one can see them making an effort to un- Public interest alism, have succeeded in making the no- derstand the public interest, and in their lost? tion of the public interest seem, if any- policies and programs an effort to bring thing, even more quixotic. What can be it into being. done on this score is not so clear. Of this class of exceptional statesmen However, our second obstacle, paro- perhaps none stand out in clarity of chialism, may be more readily sur- thought as much as James Madison and mounted, simply by widening the dis- Abraham Lincoln. Both leaders thought cussion beyond the academy. We might deeply about the public interest, and im- begin, for example, by looking to those portantly, they did so in the context of for whom the public interest is not some America’s two greatest crises, crises that hoary concept but their very lifeblood– would have destroyed the country in its namely, among those who on a regular infancy–namely, the Constitutional Cri- basis take up the public’s business. Un- sis of the 1780s and the Civil War. These like academics, America’s public ser- were, in the most fundamental sense, de- vants and statesmen actually live and bates over the meaning of the public in- work in the public realm, and so they terest. And what is especially useful for are more likely to have thought about our purposes is the way in which Lincoln the public interest and to have at least entered into a dialogue, as it were, with an intuitive sense for what it may mean. Madison, attempting to correct what Now, not each and every bureaucrat and he viewed to be Madison’s faulty under- congressman has pondered the meaning standing of the public interest. of the public interest in any great detail, and it is certainly the case that self-inter- Madison’s The Federalist, No. 10, is the est and hypocrisy often color their un- locus classicus for all thinking about the derstandings of the public interest. The public interest in America. This short es- politician’s hypocrisy, however, is much say stands out as America’s greatest con- less of a threat to the public interest than tribution in political theory, and it has is the academic’s debunking skepticism. by now received more commentary and The politician in his hypocrisy at least analysis than perhaps any other piece of acknowledges the authority of the public political writing by an American. I can interest, while the skeptical intellectual, hardly add to this great body of scholar- consciously or not, seeks to dethrone it. ly work. Instead, I propose to look at it An additional consideration is to be strictly for the light it sheds on the prob- kept in mind: America has been graced lem of the public interest. through much of its history with a num- Madison had a mind ever alert to theo- ber of genuinely thoughtful, even philo- retical ambiguities and political conun- sophic-minded politicians. In our own drums. He was not one to hide his head day the names of Daniel Patrick Moy- in the sand. Where lesser politicians nihan, Ronald Reagan, and Franklin might be slow to see a problem, which Roosevelt come to mind; pushing fur- would come back to haunt them, and ther back one thinks of Woodrow Wil- where still other politicians might claim son, Teddy Roosevelt, and Henry Cabot to have solved the problem, when in fact Lodge, or further still, Daniel Webster, they had merely found a Band-Aid, Mad- Henry Clay, and John Quincy Adams, ison never sought the easy way out. He not to mention the Founders. In the always followed an argument, no matter writings and addresses of such leaders how intricate, and always wrestled with

Dædalus Fall 2007 23 Adam a political problem, no matter how ap- securing individual rights and interests Wolfson on parently irresolvable, to the end. The but some more substantial and transcen- the public public interest was one such problem dent good. interest for Madison, a problem that could be At the same time, as even a cursory neither ignored nor wished away. reading of The Federalist, No. 10, shows, What drives Madison’s analysis in The Madison cleaved to the more modern, Federalist is his effort to reconcile two Lockean notion of the public interest, notions of the public interest–one of one in which the protection of private a more ancient pedigree and the other property looms large indeed. “Govern- more decidedly modern. In a quasi-clas- ment has no other end but the preser- sical spirit, Madison argues in The Feder- vation of Property,” Locke asserts cate- alist, No. 45, that “the public good, the gorically in the Second Treatise.11 Madi- real welfare of the great body of the peo- son, as did many of America’s Founders, ple, is the supreme object to be pursued; shared this view of government’s pur- and that no form of government whatev- poses. “Government is instituted to pro- er has any other value than as it may be tect property of every sort,” Madison ½tted for the attainment of this object.”8 wrote on another occasion.12 The Dec- Madison uses such holistic, almost com- laration of Independence itself declares, munitarian, terms throughout The Feder- somewhat more eloquently than did alist, as when he appeals to “the essential Locke, that we Americans “hold these interests of the whole” or “the compre- truths to be self-evident, that all men are hensive and permanent interest of the created equal, that they are endowed by State”–or when he speaks of “the hap- their Creator with certain unalienable piness of society” as government’s true Rights, that among these are Life, Liber- end.9 “A good government implies,” ty and the pursuit of Happiness,” and Madison states emphatically in The Fed- “that to secure these rights, Govern- eralist, No. 62, “½delity to the object of ments are instituted among Men.” government, which is the happiness of All of this is familiar enough, but in the people.”10 The Federalist, No. 10, Madison draws Madison was thus no blind partisan of our attention to the deeper source of democracy or republicanism, however the right to property and what this right either is de½ned; in Madison’s view, we implies. As Madison puts it: “The rights are to judge a government not so much of property originate” from “the diver- by its form but according to whether it sity in the faculties of men.” In other secures the public good–the public’s words, something stands behind the true happiness. Madison uses, it is also right to property, namely, “diversity in worth noting, the older terminology of the faculties of men.” And thus, as seen the public good, as opposed to the public through Madison’s eyes, when Locke interest. Government is not simply about declared that “Government has no oth-

11 John Locke, The Second Treatise of Govern- 8 The Federalist, No. 45, in Clinton Rossiter, ed., ment, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge The Federalist Papers (New York: Mentor, 1999), University Press, 1988), 329. 257. 12 James Madison, “Property,” in The Founders’ 9 Ibid., 247, 264, 247. Constitution, ed. Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 10 The Federalist, No. 62, in ibid., 348. 1987), I:598.

24 Dædalus Fall 2007 er end but the preservation of Property,” interests and parties” (emphasis added).14 Public interest he necessarily meant that government It is precisely the government’s sanc- lost? has the duty to protect more than mere tioning of the property right that leads property; it has, putting Locke and Mad- to different interests and eventually to ison together, ‘no other end but the pre- what Madison describes as “the violence servation of the diversity in the facul- of faction”–out of which grows in turn ties of men.’ Or to use Madison’s actual “instability, injustice, and confusion.”15 words in The Federalist, No. 10, “The pro- The end point is the eclipse of the public tection of these faculties is the ½rst object interest followed by the destruction of of government” (emphasis added).13 popular government. In framing the matter this way, Madi- Madison states in The Federalist, No. 10, son came up against a great dif½culty in that it is his aim to solve this problem, to how to think about the public interest, square the circle, as it were, and in such a one that he did not attempt to ½nesse: way that it will be possible “to secure the he espoused two different, even collid- public good and private rights . . . and at ing, understandings of the ends of gov- the same time to preserve the spirit and ernment. On the one hand, govern- form of popular government.”16 The ment’s “supreme object” is the public solution, he believed, is to be found not good; on the other hand, government’s in a religious discipline of self-sacri½ce, “½rst object” is the protection of the di- nor in public and private virtue, at least versity of faculties. Well, we might ask for the most part, but instead in such Madison, which is it? And can these two institutional devices as representation different ends, the public good and pri- and the separation of powers, as well as, vate rights, always be reconciled? Can most famously, the extended sphere of we really protect, without one giving the Union. way to the other, both the happiness of the whole people and the happiness of Did the solution work? Did Madison’s each individual as expressed in their un- auxiliary precautions enable the coun- equal capacities for amassing wealth? try to protect the property right and at Or will these two ends in some instances no expense to the people’s welfare? It is be in tension, if not open conflict? not my aim to consider in any detail his A lesser mind might have denied that solution, which is known well enough any problem existed. But such was not and has received countless commentar- Madison’s way. Instead, he faces square- ies, nor is it my aim to render judgment ly up to the problem, stating unambigu- about whether Madison succeeded. ously that, yes, it is indeed the case that There can be honest disagreement about the property right foments faction: the theoretical plausibility as well as the “From the protection of different and relative historical success of Madison’s unequal faculties of acquiring property, project. Instead, I would like to move the possession of different degrees and forward nearly seventy-½ve years to ex- kinds of property immediately results; amine how Abraham Lincoln saw the and from the influence of these on the senti- problem. ments and views of the respective proprietors ensues a division of the society into different 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid., 45. 13 The Federalist, No. 10, in Rossiter, ed., The Federalist Papers, 46. 16 Ibid., 48.

Dædalus Fall 2007 25 Adam Lincoln lived in what we might call a that whereas Madison admonishes in Wolfson on post-Madisonian epoch, in which all of The Federalist, No. 51, that men are not the public Madison’s various devices for contain- angels, Lincoln in his First Inaugural interest ing the mischiefs of faction, such as rep- appeals to “the better angels of our na- resentation, the separation of powers, ture.” and the extended sphere, had seemingly To remind ourselves: For Madison failed. It was a time in which the right “the ½rst object of government” is the to property had become synonymous, at protection of the diversity of faculties least to some Americans, with the right of men, which by his own admission to own human chattel; a period in which led to the problem of ruinous faction many thought that slavery was in the and the eventual obliteration of the pub- public interest; an age in which “the ex- lic good. Lincoln took up a similar contended republic” hoped for by Madison stellation of issues in his war message had become the crisis of “the house di- to Congress, but his proposed solution vided” foretold by Lincoln. did not involve Madison’s auxiliary in- Public deliberation and persuasion stitutional precautions. Instead, Lincoln could, under the circumstances, accom- sought to contain the problem of faction plish only so much–and as Lincoln said by replacing what Madison called “the “the war came.” Yet Lincoln did not take ½rst object of government” with what the necessity of war and the urgency of Lincoln called government’s “leading victory as excuses for avoiding serious object”: reflection on some of the perhaps more This is essentially a People’s contest. On obscure but no less important causes of the side of the Union, it is a struggle for the crisis. Such causes, if not addressed, maintaining in the world, that form, and would continue to haunt even a reunited substance of government, whose leading America. That is, Lincoln ‘the war pres- object is, to elevate the condition of men ident’ did not neglect the responsibili- –to lift arti½cial weights from all shoul- ties of statesmanship–in this case, the ders–to clear the paths of laudable pur- responsibility of explaining to the Amer- suit for all–to afford all, an unfettered ican people the deeper sources of the start, and a fair chance, in the race of life. conflict. He did this over the course of Yielding to partial, and temporary depar- his presidency, particularly in such tures, from necessity, this is the leading speeches as the Gettysburg Address and object of the government for whose exis- the Second Inaugural; but for our pur- tence we contend.17 poses I would like to focus on his July 4, 1861, “Message to Congress in Special For Lincoln the leading object of gov- Session.” ernment is not the protection of men’s What is particularly interesting about unequal faculties for acquiring proper- this speech is the way in which it ad- ty, which, as Madison himself acknowl- dresses many of the same problems edged, creates different interests, con- Madison had wrestled with–and given tending parties, a factious spirit–and the outbreak of hostilities had arguab- the snuf½ng out of any sense of the pub- ly failed to resolve. Indeed, Lincoln’s lic good. It is instead to elevate the con- speech seems almost to take direct aim dition of all men. The property right, at the solution offered in The Federalist, No. 10. The tenor of the contrast be- 17 Abraham Lincoln, Selected Speeches and Writ- tween their views is reflected in the fact ings (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), 313.

26 Dædalus Fall 2007 with its basis in human nature, would est. In the passage immediately preced- Public interest still be protected in Lincoln’s alterna- ing the one quoted above, Lincoln in- lost? tive; Lincoln was no proto-Socialist. vites us to make a comparison of anoth- However, Lincoln grounds democratic er sort. He points out that the states of government, almost as if in response to the Confederacy had designed new dec- Madison, in the positive project of im- larations of independence. Absent from proving the condition of every Ameri- these, he notes, are “the rights of men can, of affording to all “an unfettered and the authority of the people.” In their start, and a fair chance,” rather than the declarations of independence there is no negative one of sanctioning inequality. mention, as in the original, of the laws Such a revised conception of the public of nature and of nature’s God, nor of interest–one that arguably all Ameri- human equality. And just as disturbing, cans of whatever station in life, and Lincoln observes, is the Confederacy’s whatever their given faculties, could rewriting of the U.S. Constitution’s Pre- support–was intended to head off the amble. I will quote the two preambles problem of faction that had so con- side by side, ½rst the original and then founded Madison. It also no doubt gave the Confederacy’s, so as to make Lin- birth to what became known as Ameri- coln’s concerns absolutely clear. ca’s civil religion, which would involve We the People of the United States, in not merely a defense of our given empir- Order to form a more perfect Union, ical interests, but an aspiration toward establish Justice, insure domestic Tran- something more ennobling at the socio- quility, provide for the common defense, logical level. In such a Lincolnian con- promote the general Welfare, and secure ception of the public good, one sees in the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and embryo not only the argument against our Posterity, do ordain and establish this slavery but also for a more active role Constitution for the United States of for government in the maintenance and America. promotion of equal rights–of “a fair chance”–for all. We, the people of the Confederate States, Lincoln’s more capacious, democratic, each State acting in its sovereign and inde- and forward-looking understanding of pendent character, in order to form a per- the public interest would not eliminate manent federal government, establish jus- the problem of faction, which had so be- tice, insure domestic tranquility, and se- deviled Madison; but Lincoln’s view, cure the blessings of liberty to ourselves once ½rmly rooted in American public and our posterity invoking the favor and opinion, may have served historically guidance of Almighty God do ordain and to dampen the formation of rival ideo- establish this Constitution for the Confed- logical parties, parties that would have erate States of America. irreconcilably and violently disagreed Gone from the latter, Lincoln ob- on the very de½nition of the public in- served, is the authority of the American terest. It may not be a stretch to suggest people. Gone as well is the aspiration to that Lincoln’s reformulation made pos- provide for “the common defense” and sible the liberal consensus in America to promote “the general Welfare.” And so remarked upon by twentieth-century the Confederate constitution not only political scientists. deletes but adds something: having re- We can dig a bit deeper still into Lin- jected the American people and the laws coln’s understanding of the public inter-

Dædalus Fall 2007 27 Adam of nature as its sources of authority, it conservative intellectuals. Nowadays, it Wolfson on looks elsewhere, invoking instead “the seems, we are all Confederates. Conser- the public favor and guidance of Almighty God.” vatives and liberals, both taking pride in interest (It is worth noting that an effort was un- their ‘realism,’ argue that the notion of derway in the North as well to acknowl- the public interest is nothing but a ½g- edge in the Constitution’s Preamble the ment–conservatives in the name of the biblical God as the source of political rights of the individual, and liberals in authority.) In these dueling preambles, the name of the rights of the group. For we can see that Lincoln’s Civil War was conservatives, the rights of the individ- over more than that geographical entity ual trump all; for liberals, it is the rights known as the Union; it was to renew and of the group. A rigid individualism, on reinvigorate the ideal of the public inter- the one hand, and an ideological multi- est as embodied in the Declaration of In- culturalism, on the other, have hollowed dependence and the Constitution. Lin- out the public good. coln’s war was over what it means to be In this sense, it is worth noting, too, an American. that both Left and Right are closer to a one-dimensional, deformed Madisoni- Today Lincoln is honored with a mon- anism than to Lincoln’s view. Conserva- ument, a temple almost, on the Mall in tives admire Madison for his categorical Washington, D.C., while Jefferson Da- defense of the property right, overlook- vis is all but forgotten. And yet, one ing his concern for the general welfare, wonders, the Confederacy’s cause is while liberals look to him as the found- dead, but perhaps not its pinched and er of the school of pluralism (and thus, hidebound spirit. For in many ways the mistakenly, as a distant forebearer of the Confederate preamble is more conge- multicultural ideal). These theoretical nial to modern sensibilities than is the constructs have come to shape opinion Preamble defended by Lincoln. and policy, with the result that there is I would observe, in passing, that the increasingly no ‘us’ in consideration– Preamble’s invocation of “the common only individual ‘atoms’ or disparate defense” seems just as remote to many ‘identity units’ cutting along the lines of America’s political and cultural elites of race, ethnicity, religion, class, and now as it did to the drafters of the Con- gender. The public interest ideal, caught federate constitution who had it deleted. as it has become by this pincer move- We are today, as in Lincoln’s time, two ment between individualism and mul- (or more) nations in possession of radi- ticulturalism, can no longer inspire a cally differing views of the common de- shared sense of purpose. Indeed, the fense. There is at present no bipartisan ideal may well disappear entirely in the understanding in defense and foreign decades to come, the consequences of policy on how to prevail in our post-9/11 which would be the likely demise of lib- world. National security–which by ne- eral governance. For we should consider cessity has to be the primary, most ele- that it was probably no accident that the mental responsibility of any political Confederacy, in expunging the general community–has become, in modern- welfare and the people’s authority from day America, as contested and unsettled its national charter, felt the need to in- as the public interest. ject the Almighty God as a source of its The public interest itself has few de- authority and legitimacy. The public was fenders today, whether among liberal or to be supplanted by the Holy. One can

28 Dædalus Fall 2007 sense in this gesture a deeper relation: Public interest namely, that the public interest is to the lost? social contract what God’s revelation is to the church. It gives it its form, content, and end, not to mention its sancti- ty. And thus in abandoning the public interest we risk dissolving the liberal social contract, making way for alternative social and political forms. I do not wish to conclude on such a pessimistic note, however, for our situation is surely not as dire as was Madi- son’s or Lincoln’s. There is something about the public interest, and our quest for it, that prevents it from being simply forgotten. It may be fashionable in certain circles to dismiss the public interest as a meaningless term, a talisman at best, more suited to the age of witch doctors than of modern science or post- modern irony. However, the public interest is no less real than the manifold interest of individuals and groups, and in times of crisis, its necessity will at the very least be felt.

Dædalus Fall 2007 29 Nathan Glazer

Realizing the public interest: reflections on an elusive goal

One would think that having edited tionally, acted disinterestedly and be- for thirty years a journal titled The Pub- nevolently.” (Change ‘men’ to ‘men and lic Interest, I should be clear on what the women’ to account for social changes, public interest is, how to determine it, and changes in rhetoric, since this state- and perhaps how to implement it. But ment was published in 1955, and written after reading hundreds of articles by probably earlier than that.) scholars, journalists, and public ½gures Or, in a somewhat more expanded who have tried, in one area of public pol- effort by Charles Frankel in 1962: “The icy after another, to de½ne the policies ideal of the public interest calls on men, that would truly promote the public in- despite their egoism, to set their prefer- terest, I am only left in greater uncer- ences side by side with the preferences tainty as to how to de½ne it. of others, and to examine them all with Nonetheless, the language to express the same disinterestedness and impar- the public interest, as against all the tiality. It asks them to seek as tolerable ‘special interests,’ is available. No one and comprehensive a compromise has done it better than Walter Lippman, among those interests as is possible. when he wrote: “The public interest And it reminds them that every decision may be presumed to be what men would they make is a limited one, that some in- choose if they saw clearly, thought ra- terests may have been overlooked, that something better may be possible.”1 Nathan Glazer, a Fellow of the American Acade- This kind of understanding of the pub- my since 1969, is Professor of Sociology and Edu- lic interest is certainly what Daniel Bell cation, Emeritus, at Harvard University. He is and Irving Kristol had in mind when the author of numerous books, including “Beyond they founded The Public Interest in 1963. the Melting Pot” (with Daniel Patrick Moyni- It was a time when there were high pros- han, 1963), “Af½rmative Discrimination” (1975), pects for the social sciences as a guide to “Ethnic Dilemmas” (1983), “The Limits of So- policy, domestic and possibly even for- cial Policy” (1988), “We Are All Multiculturalists eign, and when it was hoped that ration- Now” (1997), and most recently “From a Cause to a Style: Modernist Architecture’s Encounter 1 In the interest of full disclosure, both quo- with the American City” (2007). tations are in Pendleton Herring’s article on “Public Interest” in The International Encyclope- © 2007 by Nathan Glazer dia of the Social Sciences of 1968.

30 Dædalus Fall 2007 ality and disinterest would play a larger ities. Much of the new building was to Realizing role in politics and policymaking than provide housing for moderate-income the public interest: ideology, passion, individual power- groups. What could be more in the pub- reflections seeking, and narrow self- and group in- lic interest than such enterprises? More- on an elu- terest would. These permanent features over, both had wide support in demo- sive goal of the human condition could not be cratically elected legislatures at all levels transcended, but at least what would –national, state, and local–another way be best, for most of us, could be deter- of de½ning the public interest. mined and in any situation of conflict But both were also under attack, not set forth as something for which we least in The Public Interest, for their more should aim. In 1971, John Rawls pub- immediate as well as their secondary lished a more systematic and rigorous and long-range effects. The construc- effort to de½ne the public interest, with tion of freeways, when they entered great influence on political philosophy. cities, and urban renewal both required A Theory of Justice provoked hundreds, the clearance of land. This land often if not thousands, of articles trying to de- contained houses in which people had ½ne the public interest. And other ear- lived, perhaps for decades; and long- lier systematic efforts, such as Jeremy established businesses that provided - Bentham’s, were available. livings for families, and jobs and ser- But de½ning the public interest was vices for nearby dwellers. How were not so easy in practice, when one consid- their interests to be taken into account ered speci½c policies. For example, in when one pursued the larger public in- the early years of The Public Interest, two terest? great urban domestic enterprises were There were legal and political mecha- in process, both spurred by national nisms for doing this: money for reloca- policies providing hundreds of billions tion, the power of eminent domain to of dollars, and both at ½rst glance, or condemn and take property, a mecha- even at second or third, well quali½ed nism for valuing it. Indeed, to demon- to be pronounced policies in pursuit of strate the rationality and good sense of the public interest. One was a project such projects, techniques for cost-ben- to build the system of high-speed free- e½t analysis–with which the public ways that would provide easier access authorities could determine when the from one place to another and enable ‘bene½ts’ of a new enterprise exceeded more rapid commuting to jobs in cities and made worthwhile the ‘costs’ re- and suburbs. quired, public and private–were com- The second was a program to clear ing into effect and being adopted with away decrepit housing and other facili- great enthusiasm (as well as required ties in central cities. These buildings had by federal legislation). It was a heady been constructed at a time when hous- moment for such analyses, which were ing had to be close to jobs, and when in- growing ever more technically advanced dustrial and business enterprises were in pace with new computer capabilities. concentrated in cities to take advantage But how could one value the cost of leav- of rail access. The aim was to replace ing a home to which one had become at- these obsolete areas, as they were then tached, a neighborhood in which one thought of, with modern urban envi- had grown up, or a business that had sus- ronments embracing housing, services, tained one’s parents and one’s family? work, and cultural and educational facil- Were these losses a matter that had to be

Dædalus Fall 2007 31 Nathan counted when one considered the public communities built on cheaper land far Glazer on interest? from the city. The freeways also made it the public Activists certainly thought so. What easier for businesses to set up their facil- interest they saw was a community disrupted ities in the new communities. Thus the to promote private interests: the inter- cities lost population and jobs and tax ests of construction companies and revenue. The roads that had been built construction workers to begin with, to make it easier to get to the cities were for they were often most active in press- now being used to flee them. ing for new construction. Then there One of the most intriguing problems were the politicians, who wanted to get raised by efforts to determine the value reelected by pointing to major projects of public policies came when their direct they had sponsored. All this was obvi- and immediate effects, it was asserted ous before one could discern the longer- on the basis of more extended analysis, range effects that served the public in- undermined their intended effects. Eco- terest. Were they then trying to advance nomic inequality is always a key concern ‘public’ or ‘private’ interests? The word for public policy, and much public poli- ‘interest’ comes in two different mean- cy is enacted to counter it: minimum- ings, when we contrast ‘the public in- wage laws, programs to provide more terest’ with ‘interest groups.’ Should we funds for housing or food for the poor, apply the term ‘special-interest groups’ an Earned Income Tax Credit to supple- to the evicted homeowners and business ment the incomes of low wage-earners, owners, or to those who would pro½t a progressive income tax under which from the new building the eviction made the rich pay more and the poor less. possible? The latter now exists in pallid and This was only the ½rst and the sim- hardly evident form, for the arguments plest order of conflict over the public in- as to its bene½ts in serving those with terest when one considered urban rede- less income have been greatly under- velopment. In the recent Kelo case, the mined, not least by arguments put forth Supreme Court held that a homeowner by conservative (but not only conserva- determined not to sell her house had to tive) critics that assert that such meas- give it up under eminent domain, so that ures reduce investments in productive a pro½t-making enterprise that needed job-creating enterprises and thus hurt a large expanse of land could be built: not only the economy but also the poor. this development was expected to pro- The poor would be aided more by a vi- vide more tax revenue for the communi- brant and growing economy than by ty and thus further the public interest. one that, in its efforts to combat inequal- Potential second- and third-order ef- ity, provided fewer jobs and raised un- fects of the road-building and urban re- employment. Note recent articles on newal programs raised more serious, France, where a conservative govern- if less immediate, questions about the ment, elected in part on the basis of such public interest. The new freeways made reasoning, has taken power. it easier to build suburbs farther from The point here is not to argue that the central cities. But the ½xed political these programs intended to reduce in- boundaries of cities made it impossible equality have been shown to be counter- to tax those who moved outside their productive, and thus not to realize their borders yet bene½ted from the freeways intentions. That is a matter for debate in gaining access to housing in the new among economists and other policy

32 Dædalus Fall 2007 analysts, and the issues are never fully Kenneth Galbraith and others thought Realizing resolved. (Almost the only public poli- we were affluent enough forty-½ve years the public interest: cy of the past half-century that seems ago. Even that ½nal test of the public reflections to have universal approval is the G.I. Bill interest (½nal, that is, in most current on an elu- of Rights.) The point rather is to note thinking), a growing economy, may have sive goal that even the policies that seem to have to be challenged by a wider view of the the most direct effect of alleviating the public interest–one that might be called condition of the poor may be shown the human interest. on analysis to have other outcomes that subvert their original intentions. Of These less than systematic considera- course, those whom these policies harm tions on arguments over what serves the –the ‘special interests’–½nd it in their public interest raise a number of general interest to promote and publicize such problems. The list that follows is hard- analyses. But the analyses themselves ly complete, nor are all the items on the are often conducted by serious and im- same plane from the point of view of partial economists and other policy ana- logic or relationship to the problem of lysts. the public interest, but they arise from This is not the end of the chain of ar- tussling with concrete policy issues that gument and analysis, and counterargu- have engaged us in recent decades. They ment and counteranalysis, as one moves make the problem of unambiguously de- into third-order and further effects. ½ning the public interest a dif½cult one. France may create fewer jobs and have a We can characterize the ½rst large less vibrant economy generally than the problem in determining the public in- United States does, but its people seem terest in this way: what is ‘the public’ generally happier with the society they when we consider the public interest? have, with less inequality, more redistri- For many issues of public policy, we bution, and policies that provide wide tend to set the boundary for consider- access to high-quality public services. ation as that of the nation, the largest Are public satisfaction and amenity to political entity that wields effective and be reckoned into the calculation of the dominant power. But the public can be public interest? One would think they as narrow as the neighborhood that will would have to be. be affected by the building of a major And we can go beyond the policies and road, a low-rent housing project, a half- their effects, direct and indirect, on in- way house for persons released from pri- equality and quality of life to consider son, or a home for mental patients who some larger, and now more pressing and are being removed from large state insti- widely acknowledged, repercussions of tutions, which have everywhere been the more active and growing economy closed. Can a larger calculation of costs that American-style policies promote. Is and bene½ts settle the matter? Perhaps it in the public interest to foster a more in theory, but certainly not in practice or vibrant economy–one that consumes in local politics. more natural resources, changes the cli- Today we also have to take into ac- mate, and endangers the earth–when count issues that may be under the con- one is already suf½ciently well-off? Is trol of national entities but transcend not the constant preference for an active, national boundaries. These are preemi- growing economy ignoring a central hu- nently the policies contributing to glob- man interest in a sustainable earth? John al warming. This is certainly a matter

Dædalus Fall 2007 33 Nathan for the public interest, but the effective nently Mexico but also Central Ameri- Glazer on ‘publics’ who determine how the issue ca and the Caribbean nations (with less- the public is to be governed are national publics, er effects on other nations), because of interest de½ned by state boundaries. That ‘pub- their dependence on the United States as lic’ is too large for some issues–those a place where their poor and young may neighborhood issues I have referred to, ½nd employment and remit earnings to for it may not notice the harm it does in their families in their home countries. pursuing its interests–but too small in If the United States made the cut-off for considering a worldwide public interest these wage-earners effective, would that like limiting climate change. not also affect the internal stability of Something like an international pub- these nations, and is that not also part of lic is emerging, as we note when we see the American public interest? some change in President Bush’s posi- A second large issue I have raised in tion on policies to control carbon emis- these initial considerations is that of sion. His shift suggests that the interest how far we should extend our considera- of the United States in a strong and tion of the consequences of policies af- growing economy, which led to his ini- fecting the public interest. Here, extend- tial dismissal of the Kyoto proposals, ed analysis, as I have shown, may contra- has been modi½ed, perhaps in part by dict the initial intentions and expecta- the growth of what we might call an in- tions of given policies. This is related to ternational public opinion and an inter- a third issue: how far into the future can national public interest. Other elements, we go when we consider the public in- such as his declining political effective- terest? The policy we choose today may ness, are major contributors to the be different if we think about the pub- change. lic interest ten or twenty or thirty years The issue of a boundary to the public ahead. Our politics, as is well known, is not often in mind when we speak of are not set up so as to account for long- the public interest, since effective deci- range interests. We elect our public of- sion making is taken by national govern- ½cials for two or four or six years, and ments for a public within that boundary. often limit their opportunity to seek re- But if one does not so bound the reach of election. the public interest, one may note many Not long ago, three widely discussed issues–determined at the national level exhibits on the work of Robert Moses in –that ideally should take into account reshaping the city of New York were on their impact beyond the national bound- display in various venues in New York. ary. At the present writing, we are en- They raised this question: may a policy gaged in a major debate on immigration that we generally think of as not in the policy. We consider its effects on us as a public interest be reinterpreted to be in nation, within the United States, and the the public interest a few decades down research on these effects concentrates the line? on such matters as immigration’s impact Robert Moses was indeed a controver- on wage levels for the low-income wage- sial ½gure. He undoubtedly thought that earner, or the dependence of certain he was working exclusively in the pub- businesses and industries on imported lic interest, and when one contrasts his immigrant labor. career with that of public ½gures today– But our immigration policies also have many of whom seem to take their years consequences for our neighbors, preemi- in public life as a prelude to money-mak-

34 Dædalus Fall 2007 ing in post-public life–he does stand image of Moses, some of the most pow- Realizing out as distinctively indifferent to any erful and affecting pages describe the the public interest: personal self-interest. He dealt with building of the Cross-Bronx Express- reflections projects that cost the equivalent of bil- way and its destruction of working- and on an elu- lions in today’s dollars, but left an es- lower-middle-class neighborhoods in sive goal tate of $50,000. If one looks at the pub- the Bronx. lic works to which he devoted himself– In recent years, Jane Jacobs, who has parks and playgrounds and public beach- reshaped our thinking about city plan- es; swimming pools for the poor; park- ning and urban development, has ways and expressways; middle-class emerged as the foil to Robert Moses. housing projects–one would regard him She fought and stopped his plan to run a major public servant. But Moses was a major freeway across Lower Manhat- execrated during the last decades of his tan, enabling rapid access between New long career, and the weight of public Jersey and Long Island and reducing opinion since then has judged him se- truck and other traf½c on the streets of verely as someone who destroyed much Lower Manhattan. Its path ran through that was valuable in New York City, an what were then moribund and low- arrogant egomaniac whom mass pub- priced small-scale industrial facilities lic protest had to stop before he caused and businesses. In subsequent years the greater damage to the public domain. areas that were to be demolished flour- Yet Moses was regularly appointed to ished as Soho and Tribeca, in the very the positions that permitted him to carry buildings deemed derelict and slated for out his public works by democratically demolition. Here, the long-range future elected governors and mayors, most of spoke decisively against Moses: who whom are considered in their public would exchange Soho and Tribeca and lives embodiments of enlightened public the related areas today for an express- service. How could opinion on the work way? and career of Robert Moses diverge so But what do we think today about the radically? One reason is the difference large-scale housing developments for in how we evaluate what we have in the the middle class that Moses built un- present against a perspective that looks der urban renewal, also attacked in his further into the future. Here, other is- time for uprooting small businesses and sues arise, such as how far we can look homeowners and renters? Today, these into the future, and how we can avoid developments are seen as one of the few grave errors in sacri½cing a present to a anchors of a lower-middle class and presumed better future. middle class in Manhattan and New There is least argument over his work York City. When The Power Broker was developing parks, playgrounds, beaches, published, in 1974, New York City was and swimming pools. These were often going through the worst ½nancial crisis on undeveloped land or land left over in its history: it was losing population, from other projects, and did not require and it seemed doubtful it would ever the large-scale uprooting of homes and recover. Little need then to take much business that the major road-building account of Moses’s housing develop- and urban renewal projects entailed. In ments. But the 1980s saw some progress, Robert Caro’s huge book on Moses, The the 1990s more, and today the rising Power Broker, which has been the dom- costs of land and rent have effectively inant influence in shaping the public turned Manhattan, and in increasing

Dædalus Fall 2007 35 Nathan measure the rest of New York City, into ter. But when we think of the many great Glazer on places where apparently only the poor, projects of the past, effected in days the public in subsidized housing projects, and the when these democratic processes hard- interest prosperous, in the private market for ly existed, we can also regret the limita- housing, can live. The middle-income tion we have placed on large thinking, developments built by Moses under on commitments on a large scale to what urban renewal now provide thousands we will need, appreciate, or enjoy in the of apartments for teachers, policemen, future. When community activists, rais- ½re½ghters, health workers, and the ing environmental considerations (the like. Here, the future has spoken in fa- breeding environment of a Hudson Riv- vor of Moses’s vision, though we may er ½sh would be affected), shot down still decry the design of these develop- the proposal for a grand new roadway ments, so similar to low-rent housing to be built through parks on the west projects. side of Manhattan, Daniel Patrick Moy- There was no way of calculating the nihan (then a senator from New York, verdict of the future, and a rather far who supported the project along with future, in the 1950s and 1960s. There is the then-mayor of New York City and no way of calculating what the future the governor of New York State) mused will think of the policies we institute in public, “How did we ever build the today. To sacri½ce the present for the George Washington Bridge?” future on a large scale–the policy of We must ask whether we struck the Communism in Russia and China–is right balance in pursuing the public in- abhorrent to us. But on a smaller scale terest when in the 1960s and 1970s we we do it every day, when we demolish created the institutions and practices a neighborhood for a new tax-paying to govern and limit public action. Do development or a new major road, re- we weight the present against a possible placing a modest present with what we future too highly? It is not an easy an- conceive of as a larger, or more useful, swer. When we look at the cities of Chi- or more productive, perhaps grander, na, we think, they need less Robert Mo- future. ses and more Jane Jacobs. But in our It is harder to do these days, in part country today, perhaps certain kinds of because of our experience with Robert public work, in furtherance of the pub- Moses and his equivalents in other cit- lic interest, are too hampered. When ies. We now have a much greater degree the exhibit on the magni½cent work of of mandated local participation and re- Jane Jacobs opens soon, we may be led quired environmental impact reports for to wonder, how under her strictures do every large project; we now have special- we build the grand projects that we may ists who are employed by developers to need and that may ful½ll our desires for engage in scores of meetings with com- a great city? munities to ease the way for approvals for every large project, and to overcome the inevitable opposition of those invested in what exists for what will replace it. All this is for the best. Our democratic processes have been developed and expanded to de½ne the public interest bet-

36 Dædalus Fall 2007 Jagdish Bhagwati

Economic policy in the public interest

Economists, whose discipline has alone tries to gain the advantage by claim- ways had a strong relationship to moral ing that the opponent’s interest is ‘spe- philosophy (Adam Smith, the author of cial’ and one’s own is ‘general.’ We have The Wealth of Nations, also wrote the cel- long known that special interests have ebrated Theory of Moral Sentiments), have learned their Orwell well: they under- always seen their role in society as that stand that words matter in public de- of pursuing the public good. They prop- bates. erly see themselves as guardians of the Thus, protectionists have typically public interest, and to be engaged in used the inviting phrase ‘fair trade’ to public-policy debates against special in- mask their protectionism.1 This was terests who wish to ‘capture’ policy to true at the end of the nineteenth centu- advance their narrowly circumscribed, ry when Britain, the long-standing pro- self-serving agendas. ponent of free trade, was facing the rise I must note at the outset that as one of Germany and the United States. As analyzes the public debates on questions Britain experienced what I have called of economic policy, one sees cynical at- ‘diminished giant syndrome,’ ‘fair trade’ tempts by special interests to gain the became a cry of the protectionists, who higher ground. One might observe wry- charged these newly emerged and pro- ly that in the battle for public support, tectionist trading nations with ‘unfair trade’ and condemned Britain’s free- Jagdish Bhagwati, a Fellow of the American trade policy as inappropriate. The Unit- Academy since 1982, is University Professor, ed States would confront the same syn- Economics and Law, at Columbia University drome a century later, with the dramatic and Senior Fellow in International Economics rise of Japan in the 1980s and the dread- at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has pub- ed prospect that the twenty-½rst centu- lished more than three hundred articles and has ry would be Japan’s as the twentieth authored or edited over ½fty volumes. His publi- was America’s and the nineteenth was cations include “The Economics of Underdevel- Britain’s. Exactly as in Britain at the end oped Countries” (1966), “Protectionism” (1988), 1 Throughout this essay, I draw on examples “Free Trade Today” (2002), and “In Defense of from the theory of commercial policy where Globalization” (2004). my scholarly expertise is the greatest. Similar examples can surely be drawn from other areas © 2007 by Jagdish Bhagwati of economic scholarship and policymaking.

Dædalus Fall 2007 37 Jagdish of the nineteenth century, the United ideas alone: it is not enough to have the Bhagwati States witnessed the growth of demands generals; one must also have the troops. on the public for ‘fair trade,’ and charges against Japan Also, if special interests, like corporate interest that it was a wicked ‘unfair trader’ that interests, happen to see their pro½t in excluded imports and dumped its ex- what one proposes, that does not sub- ports. tract from the fact that the policy one is The latest proponents of such de- advocating is prompted by the public in- mands are the afl-cio and the New terest. Democrats–and therefore the Old One lesson for the economists who Democrats who must fall in line. They seek to influence public policy, however, are concerned with competition from is to ensure that they do not open them- the poor countries instead. Desperately selves to the charge that they have been seeking ways to protect themselves from ‘bought.’ In the 1980s and early 1990s, such competition, they claim that these the years of Japan-bashing in the United poor nations are indulging in ‘unfair States, I was almost alone in defending trade’ because they have labor and do- Japan against exaggerated, hysterical at- mestic environmental standards not tacks by Detroit and other U.S. produc- identical to those in the United States. ers, and by the media and the politicians. Raising these standards in the poor At the time, I was careful not to accept countries, in the name of ‘fair trade,’ any moneys for even a lecture or a con- is nothing but a form of ‘export protec- ference paper in Japan. When I went to a tionism’: it is aimed at raising the cost conference associated with the Japanese of production in these countries and Ministry of International Trade and In- thereby moderating the competition dustry (organized by my good friend they pose. Professor Ryutaro Komiya, whom I got These lobbies are equally adept at dis- to know well when he was at Harvard guising this protectionist agenda by si- and I was at mit in 1956–1957), we were multaneously asserting that their de- all offered $2,000 for our papers. All the mands to have the poor nations raise Japan-bashers readily accepted the mon- their labor standards to U.S. levels are ey; I said I would write but not accept inspired by empathy and altruism for the honorarium. So I was given an extra the workers in the poor countries–a lunch coupon! I used it to eat tempura in claim that is belied by reading the cam- the Okura Hotel. Later, I told my friends paign speeches of the New Democrats, that I had had $2,000 tempura in Tokyo. who always speak instead of the unfair- The punch line, however, was that prices ness of losing jobs to rivals with lower in Tokyo were so high, and even more standards, i.e., import competition. outrageous in the big hotels, that I could Moreover, these lobbies frequently very well have had tempura for $2,000! paint economists as venal fronts for ‘cor- For much the same reason, I have re- porate interests’ on issues such as free fused to consult with multinationals or trade. These lobbies forget John Stuart to sit on their boards of directors. I gen- Mill’s observation that no general inter- erally defend multinationals against est was ever advanced unless someone’s knee-jerk attacks from agitators who special interest was advanced alongside view multinationals and their ‘pro½ts’ it. In a democratic society, where votes the way moneylenders and ‘usury’ were matter, free-traders like myself realize regarded in the Middle Ages. Undeni- that free trade cannot be advanced by ably my refusal to get rich in the way

38 Dædalus Fall 2007 many economists do today has enabled ut even when a scrupulous economist Economic B policy in me to be more credible when I defend avoids these pitfalls, substantive prob- the public corporations against unjusti½ed assaults. lems still arise in pursuing the public in- interest Let me add that corporations are often terest. These come from two different buying an economist’s reputation, not directions. his or her analytical judgments. Their If we are to pursue the public interest game often is simply to say, at a suitable by arguing that one policy is preferable price, that Professor Jagdish Bhagwati over another (say, freer trade over re- or Professor Paul Krugman or Profes- treat into further protectionism), we sor William Baumol is on our side. We need to be able to analyze persuasive- would be wise not to yield to such bland- ly how the different policies will work. ishments. We may give our advice anon- Then, we must have a criterion by which ymously, but to give it with our names we choose among these policies, in light attached is to throw our reputation in of this analysis. Economists call the ½rst the face of their opponents and also in ‘positive’ analysis, and the second ‘nor- the mud. Once, an important beverage mative’ analysis. If either is defective, company operating in India asked me the economist’s ability to say that a spe- to calculate the Indian elasticity of deci½c policy advances the public interest mand for canned sodas. It clearly hoped is compromised. to argue that the elasticity was so high In truth, even the positive analysis that a reduction in the sales tax on them leads often to irreconcilable differences, would raise more, not less, revenue (à la not just between economists and others the Laffer curve). This request surprised but among economists themselves, vex- me–since I am an economist who works ing politicians who would prefer clearer with ideas and never crunches numbers guidance. Prime Minister Robert Peel, –until I realized that they had to know who abolished England’s Corn Laws in that I was a close friend of the ½nance 1846 and introduced free trade to the minister (now the prime minister). So world for the ½rst time, was clearly con- I replied mischievously: I am afraid I verted to free trade by the writings of cannot do this until the ½nance minister economists starting with Adam Smith, changes. Naturally, I never heard from though the celebrated Chicago econo- them again. mist George Stigler has written unper- Economists are also tempted today by suasively that “economists exert a mi- large fees that accrue when they testify nor and scarcely detectable influence in court on behalf of corporate clients. on the societies in which they live . . . . Lawyers do this all the time, though out- If Cobden [who led the anti-Corn Law standing jurists abstain from such prac- movement] had spoken only a little Yid- tice. Once, I was giving a keynote speech dish, and with a stammer, and Peel had at Yale Law School, when a lawyer teased been a narrow, stupid man, England me with the old chestnut, that where would have moved toward free trade in there are six economists there are six grain as its agricultural classes declined opinions (though Keynes had said seven and its manufacturing and commercial opinions, two being his own). I teased classes grew.”2 him back from the lectern: That is bad, but with lawyers the situation is worse. 2 George Stigler, The Economist as Preacher and Each lawyer has six opinions if he has six Other Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago clients. Press, 1982), 63–64.

Dædalus Fall 2007 39 Jagdish But Peel also famously lamented the cases where there is substantial consen- Bhagwati fact that he often found conflicting anal- sus, such as whether free trade is a bet- on the public ysis of the central questions in what was ter policy than protectionism. There is, interest then called ‘political economy.’ Thus he however, socially useful dissent, and argued in the Parliament: then there is socially unproductive dissent. The case for free trade, and its his- Far be it for me to depreciate that noble torical evolution since the time Adam science which is conversant with the laws Smith wrote of its virtue over two cen- that regulate the production of wealth and turies ago, illustrates this distinction seeks to make human industry most con- well. ducive to human comfort and enjoyment. Take ½rst the useful dissent. Since . . . I ½nd the dif½culties [faced by us in ac- Adam Smith, prominent economists cepting their less-than-compelling analy- have disputed the merits of free trade. sis] greatly increased by the conflict of The reason was simple. Put heuristical- authorities . . . . The very heads of Colonel ly, the case for free trade depends on Torrens’s chapters are enough to ½ll with our faith in the ability of market prices dismay the bewildered inquirer after to reflect social costs. When there are truth. These are literally these: ‘Erroneous market failures, an empirical issue, the views of Adam Smith respecting the value Invisible Hand (which depends on mar- of Corn’ . . . ‘Errors of Mr. Ricardo and his ket prices being socially correct guides followers on the subject of rents,’ ‘Error to ef½cient allocation of resources) could of Mr. Malthus respecting the nature of be pointing in the wrong direction. Dur- rent,’ ‘Refutation of the doctrines of Mr. ing the period of massive unemploy- Malthus respecting the wages of labour.’3 ment after the Great Crash of 1929, (the Little has changed since then. At the positive) market wages did not represent heart of the problem is the fact that not the true social cost of labor (which was all economists share the same model. A zero), and Keynes became a famous ad- model, whether explicit or implicit, pro- vocate for protection. vides the map of how a policy will work. In modern times, since World War II, Thus different schools plague macroeco- economists have analyzed imperfections nomics: monetarist (Milton Friedman), in the labor and other ‘factor’ markets; Keynesian, rational expectations (Rob- and my students Paul Krugman and ert Lucas), and varying versions of each. Gene Grossman have likewise examined But even if we were to agree on a model imperfections in the product markets.4 to look at the world, we can and will dis- However, in 1963, I restored the case agree on the parameters that feed into for free trade by arguing that all we the model. needed to do was apply an appropriate So we can take it for granted that policy to remove the market failure. some economists will dissent even in For example, if producers in an indus-

3 Quoted in Douglas Irwin, “Political Economy 4 In several publications during the last decade, and Peel’s Repeal of the Corn Laws,” Economics I have reviewed and systematized the repeated & Politics 1 (1) (Spring 1989). Adam Smith was episodes over two centuries of theoretical de- the dominant ½gure in the new science of polit- partures from the case for free trade for differ- ical economy (Economics); but David Ricardo ent types of market failures. The easiest to ac- enjoys a nearly equal reputation, and Malthus cess is Free Trade Today (Princeton, N.J.: Prince- and Torrens were also major writers, active in ton University Press, 2002), based on lectures at the debates of their time. the Stockholm School of Economics.

40 Dædalus Fall 2007 try were polluting without having to pay a new ‘market,’ a populist audience, and Economic policy in for the pollution, then their social cost aspire to join the ranks of Naomi Klein the public would exceed their private cost. Society and Arundhati Roy, whose conclusions interest would be overproducing in that indus- are more obvious than their arguments. try, and free trade might well be harm- These few dissenters are a nuisance, di- ful relative to protection. But if we in- verting economists into ½ghting rubbish troduced a ‘polluter pay’ tax, we could within their own ranks. Yet they present remove the market failure and go back no real threat to the ability of the profes- to free trade. This simple insight trans- sion to advance the public interest. formed the postwar theory of commer- Then again, the aging population, and cial policy, restoring to free trade its pre- the speed with which science changes, eminence and widespread support in the creates intergenerational differences in profession. analysis, as the older scholars ½nd their The few dissenters to free trade today modes of analysis being replaced by new are unlike earlier dissenters. They fall ones. Several scholars age gracelessly. into the category of unproductive dis- When Paul Samuelson was asked how senters. I suspect that their activities often science changed, he replied, “With are a response to the perverse incentives every funeral.” But even when they do that characterize economic dissent. accept the new gracefully, differences Unlike the political dissenters (such as in perception, from the use of ‘older’ Vaclav Havel) who typically lived under models, carry over into different views grueling conditions, today’s economic of the ‘positive’ issues at hand. In the re- dissenters flourish. The sheer dearth of cent debate on globalization, some have these dissenters raises their value im- argued that as economies such as India’s mensely. The foundations that fund the and China’s grow more like us in their current pandemic of conferences want endowments (i.e., develop scientists, en- the ‘opposing’ point of view represent- gineers, and doctors), the gains from our ed. So these dissenters are going to Oslo, specialization in skill-intensive products Tokyo, Port Alegre, Paris, and other ex- will decline. But we now know, from otic places to attend seminars and con- theoretical work on ‘trade in variety’ or ferences where they are welcome sim- ‘trade in similar products,’ that special- ply because economists who espouse ization takes place within industries. their viewpoints are scarce. They also So as countries grow similar in endow- ½nd themselves addressing adoring ments, trade in similar products breaks crowds, such as at the World Social Fo- out: one can observe this by walking rum, where passion outweighs intellec- down Madison Avenue and observing tual competence in these areas. And if the many men’s fashion designers, such one is a Nobel Laureate, the incentive as Giorgio Armani, Christian Dior, Ken- to behave as an economic dissenter is greater still: after all, if one has the No- countries typically tend to be ascriptive and bel Prize, why worry about what one’s also do not have the local expertise to chal- peers think?5 Instead, one can cultivate lenge erroneous pronouncements and advice. By contrast, in the developed countries, there is a lot of expertise and debate, and there are 5 It is reassuring that few Noble Laureates be- many Nobel Laureates and also other distin- have like this. The danger with a Nobel Lau- guished scholars, who can counter nonsense reate dispensing errors is particularly great propounded by their peers who play to the when it comes to developing countries. These gallery.

Dædalus Fall 2007 41 Jagdish zo, Calvin Klein, and Pierre Cardin, noted in his pathbreaking work, that this Bhagwati compete and coexist in the same fash- is only a ‘possibility’ criterion: if Man on the public ion industry while offering the custom- Friday is left in reality with his reduced interest ers much gain. Both my student Robert welfare, few would agree that the wel- Feenstra, who is the leading econome- fare of Robinson Crusoe’s island society trician of trade today and heads the actually improved. nber Program on International Trade, Economists, with increasing sophis- and my colleague David Weinstein have tication culminating in work such as estimated these gains from similar prod- Samuelson’s, have shown that free trade ucts and concluded that they are huge. is a Pareto-better policy. But suppose, Once we admit into our thinking a new as we liberalize trade, that the rich get ‘model,’ our view of reality changes: richer and the poor get poorer, and no in this instance, toward a more benign actual compensation takes place. Should view of globalization. we call Freer Trade a better policy than increased Protection? If we cannot com- In normative analysis, the economics pensate the losers, then many would re- profession runs into dif½culties as gen- ject this conclusion. uine as the ones that afflict it in positive So, if positive analysis leads one to ar- analysis. Contrary to what public-poli- gue that trade with poor countries and cy debates might suggest, economists other forms of economic globalization, do try to answer the question of how to such as multinational investment out- judge whether a policy is ‘better’ than flow to these countries and inflow of un- another. Suf½ce it here to indicate some skilled immigrants from them, is causing of the ways in which they have grappled the poor to get poorer in the rich coun- with the issue. tries (Marx’s prediction of the immiser- Perhaps the most important observa- ation of the proletariat did not material- tion I can make is to indicate how in a ize in the nineteenth and most of twen- multiperson economy one can call a tieth centuries but may now be striking policy better than another. If Robinson again with the aid of globalization), and Crusoe were to put Man Friday on a if one thinks that actual compensation boat, leaving us to judge his one-person to the losers is not feasible because of welfare as total welfare, life would be the decline of the welfare state, then that simple. But as soon as you have two (or person would reject freer trade. This more) people in a society, how do we may well describe the state of thinking determine if a policy change improves on free trade in the United States today. welfare if one person’s welfare increases But this is as good as the positive anal- but another’s declines? ysis of the effects of trade (and immigra- The typical criterion that economists tion and multinational investments). As have settled upon is the Pareto criterion: I have argued in many places,6 the asser- if the policy change improves Robinson tion by the afl-cio, and the New Dem- Crusoe’s welfare but decreases Man Fri- day’s, the policy change increases overall welfare if Robinson Crusoe can compen- 6 E.g., chapter 10 of my book, In Defense of Glo- sate Man Friday and still have enough balization (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); the afterword in the new edition issued gravy left over to make himself better in August 2007, which offers more analysis of off. This sounds great until you realize, the issues; and several recent Financial Times as my famous Oxford teacher Ian Little op-ed articles and letters on U.S. trade policy,

42 Dædalus Fall 2007 ocrats they support and capture, that is good for the recipients? Or that we Economic policy in globalization is placing the economic should give aid, as Singer proposes? the public pressure on the wages of the unskilled Furthermore, economists must re- interest and even the middle class is not tenable. spond to intergenerational income-dis- Their policy prescription against free tribution problems in addition to Rob- trade, though justi½ed by a normative inson Crusoe versus Man Friday prob- criterion that many of us share as citi- lems. A typical question we grapple with zens and economists, is vitiated by erro- is: what is the ‘optimal’ rate of saving? neous analysis, and thus handicaps, not Now with environmental concerns at advances, the public good. the forefront, we must also wonder: Indeed, there are many other instances what do we owe to future generations? in the public-policy domain today where These are income-distribution questions bad analysis married to good normative over time, not just within a given society. criteria has created counterproductive There are questions of income distri- results, setting the public interest back bution over space as well. Immigration instead of advancing it. The renowned is one example. How do we evaluate a philosopher, Peter Singer, wrote a book freer immigration policy versus a restric- against globalization, which marries his tionist one in situations where the im- utilitarian analysis with large amounts migrants gain but their outmigration of antiglobalization nonsense, marring harms those left behind (as with some an otherwise interesting book.7 He also poor countries suffering from ‘brain recently wrote a New York Times Maga- drain’)? Should immigrants’ welfare be zine article on foreign aid, which argued aggregated with that of the countries that there was a moral case for more receiving them or with that of the coun- foreign aid but betrayed absolutely no tries losing them, or with both, or with awareness of the enormous analytical, neither? The sophisticated discussion empirical, and econometric literature, of these issues is to be found in econo- both recent and from the 1960s through mists’ writings from time to time; but it 1980s, on why aid could be unproduc- is virtually lost in the din of heated de- tive and, more important, counterpro- bates over immigration. ductive.8 If aid results in less, not more, Economists are aware that in discuss- development, how can one say that aid ing public good, they must also allow for what another of my Oxford teachers, Roy Harrod, called ‘process utilitarian- especially “Technology, Not Globalization, is ism.’ Often, economists (who are gen- Driving Wages Down,” January 4, 2007. erally utilitarians) will consider a poli- 7 His book, One World: The Ethics of Globali- cy to be better because it augments ef- zation (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University ½ciency and therefore the availability Press, 2002), was reviewed jointly with my of goods and services. But one might book, Free Trade Today (Princeton, N.J.: object to the process (e.g., markets) by Princeton University Press, 2002) in The New York Review of Books, March 25, 2004. which we arrive at that ef½cient solution. As Richard Posner once argued, 8 See Peter Singer, “What Should a Billionaire Give–and What Should You?” New York Times Magazine, December 17, 2004. The large liter- surge in aid like my colleague Jeffrey Sachs; ature on how aid may have a malign impact, but that is neither persuasive to scholarly and might even be given with malign intent, economists nor calculated to advance the pub- is ignored by the proponents of a substantial lic good.

Dædalus Fall 2007 43 Jagdish a market in baby adoptions would dis- Bhagwati tribute babies ef½ciently, but most of on the public us would ½nd such a market distasteful. interest Or should we allow rich people to park in spaces for the handicapped just by buying special permits to do so: should not everyone have to assume the obligation to keep these spaces off-limits to the nonhandicapped? Or should Al Gore be co allowed to buy offsets (i.e., ½nance 2- emission reductions) from others when he emits a lot of carbon in his home? It co is ½ne if Al Gore wants to ½nance 2- emission reductions, but it should not be used to justify a lifestyle where he assumes no responsibility to cut down his own emissions. These issues are very much what we economists deal with as we discuss the public good. Our analysis, and our appreciation of the nuances involved, is much richer than what many critics, who are not familiar with the ways of sophisticated economists and go by what they learned in 101 classes from indifferently written textbooks, assume to be the case. Familiarity breeds contempt, but contempt does not breed familiarity.

44 Dædalus Fall 2007 Gary Hart

The commonwealth: our public legacy

The Founders were, virtually to a per- equality, and public virtue were indel- son, steeped in the ideals and theories of ible sentiments already graven upon the classic republics. Like John Adams the hearts of Americans who realized and James Madison, Thomas Jefferson fully the fragility of the republican poli- employed his knowledge of ancient ty.” “Republicanism after all,” he con- Greek and Latin to study the original tinues, “involved the whole character texts of the classical republican writers, of the society.”1 including Herodotus, Thucydides, Plu- The character of this new society tarch, Polybius, and Cicero. America’s manifested itself in adherence to at Founders had in mind to create a repub- least four republican principles: popu- lic along classical lines, and to do so in a lar sovereignty, resistance to corruption, way never before tried, a republican fed- civic virtue, and a sense of the common- eration with a reasonably strong central wealth. “We, the people,” the opening government. phrase of our Constitution, assumes the But the foundation of our republic did sovereignty of the people; indeed, today not rest on formal structural elements it is taken too much for granted. Corrup- alone. It also relied upon the disposition tion has unfortunately come to be seen of the citizens who would inhabit it. For- as old-fashioned bribery rather than as tunately, according to the historian Gor- it was originally conceived, as the act of don Wood, “all the notions of liberty, placing special interests above the common good. For the purposes of this es- Gary Hart is Wirth Chair Professor at the Univer- say, I will focus on the last two: civic vir- sity of Colorado at Denver and Distinguished Fel- tue, which we would today call ‘civic du- low at the New America Foundation. Hart served ty’ or citizen participation, and the sense as a U.S. Senator from 1975 to 1987. He has also of the commonwealth, from which civic written numerous publications, including “Resto- virtue emerges. ration of the Republic: The Jeffersonian Ideal in 21st Century America” (2002) and most recently Concern for the public interest, the “The Shield and The Cloak: The Security of the sense of the commonwealth, is largely Commons” (2006). 1 Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of The Ameri- © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts can Republic: 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: Universi- & Sciences ty of North Carolina Press, 1969).

Dædalus Fall 2007 45 Gary Hart con½ned these days to high school civ- est. But we can also distinguish concrete on the public ics courses, to the degree they are even features of the public interest when we interest offered. An effort by a political leader take note of how much we share. For today to reawaken this ideal would be instance, we breathe the same air and met with curiosity at best and a good drink the same water. Harm to either is deal of skepticism at worst. We ½nd our- cause for concern across classes. We also selves, after all, in an age of personal live within the same borders; breach of achievement, if not self-aggrandize- those borders by those who wish us ill is ment; with regard to money in particu- a threat to all. Moreover, the health of lar, we inhabit an era of devil-take-the- our currency affects all of us to varying hindmost. Anything suggesting collec- degrees. So the public interest includes tivism, let alone collectivization, is high- a stable currency, secure borders, and ly suspect. clean and safe natural resources. Yet, particularly among the young, The public interest also encompasses, there is a lingering feeling that we are more speci½cally, parks and recreation all in this together, that we have a lot areas, public lands, and mineral re- more in common than we often realize. sources; public transportation and high- This latent sense of community is often way systems; public education systems; very near the surface. It springs forth national security forces and public safety usually in periods of national peril, such networks; public health systems; and a as September 11. At those times, we sa- host of other facilities of which the vast lute the sacri½cial hero, the individual majority of Americans do not consider who places the interest or safety of oth- themselves to be the proprietors. ers above his or her own. These salutes Based on this list, it appears that to occur rarely enough to be notable. fall within the ambit of the public interest, A more tangible recognition of the an interest must transcend class, gender, common good lies within Article I, Sec- race, and generation. It must be a con- tion 8, of the Constitution, which em- cern of all. It must also be greater than powers Congress, inter alia, to “provide a mere collection–even an extremely . . . for the General Welfare.” After enu- large one–of private interests. And an merating speci½c Congressional powers, interest may be in the public interest this article gathers all unenumerated even if an individual or the public is not powers into the broad category of the particularly aware of its existence. general welfare, allowing posterity to Unfortunately, in the current era, the determine in its own time and manner idea of a public interest seems to have how it will de½ne and achieve the gen- little impact on our everyday lives. So- eral welfare. The general welfare clause ciety ½nds itself in a period of individ- represents an enormous exception to the ualism at the expense of the common fragmentation that the Tenth Amend- good. Though these need not be compet- ment–which guarantees the various ing visions, they currently are. There is states all powers not enumerated in the no shortage of culprits to blame: Our Constitution–otherwise invites. educational system does not feature civ- The interpretations of the general wel- ic education. Our families generally do fare clause by a variety of federal courts not cultivate civic virtue. Our political, over more than two centuries are, at business, and religious leaders do not least from a judicial point of view, a valu- stress citizen participation or duty able substantiation of the public inter- enough.

46 Dædalus Fall 2007 Some events can immediately conjure also less a threat to the current genera- The commonwealth: up national feeling. Terrorist attacks and tion than it is to future generations. our pub- engagement in foreign conflict (at least Where the public interest is con- lic legacy in its early, successful phases) are the cerned, three questions always arise: most vivid stimulants of national unity. does it exist; if so, how is it de½ned; When our country is under threat or in and, ½nally, how can it be mobilized. combat, political leaders, regardless of The ½rst is an issue of political philoso- ideology, feel at liberty to call upon our phy, the second political theory. The patriotism. But these leaders do not ½nd last is a matter for political science. As important challenges such as climate one who believes the public interest change, endemic poverty, uninsured does exist, I consider the primary goal of masses, or poor education as interesting political leaders is to awaken a healthy or as pro½table to employ as social adhe- regard for the commonwealth, even in sives. Even Social Security, as an ‘entitle- the absence of an immediate, common, ment’ program, unites society only as a and tangible threat. pool of tens of millions of individual, self-interested accounts. Seemingly, on- How are we to bridge the gap between ly national security, in the shape of the the public interest, which is largely an threat of terrorism (the replacement for abstraction, and the interests of individ- the threat of Communism), can stake a ual citizens, which are mostly practical? clear claim on the public interest. What means exist, other than fear for Today’s political leadership must ½nd their personal security, to induce people ways to unify a complex, diverse, mass to care about the public interest? democracy behind efforts to address na- The answer may rest in a version of tional threats that are not immediate or Adam Smith’s famous dictum on eco- visible. But anyone with experience in nomic self-interest in The Wealth of Na- public governance knows that mobiliz- tions: “It is not from the benevolence ing the mass, or even just a majority, of the butcher, the brewer, or the bak- of people is extraordinarily dif½cult if er, that we expect our dinner, but from the threat is not immediate; if it is not their regard to their own interest. We shared equally and by all; or if it cannot address ourselves not to their humani- be solved swiftly and with sheer force, ty but their self-love, and never talk to but instead requires from each person them of our necessities but of their ad- some measure of sacri½ce, whether in vantage.” Likewise, if we can show the the form of increased taxes or govern- average citizen–the butcher, brewer, or ment regulation. baker–how achieving what is best for Climate change is one such threat. It the public works to his or her advantage, is manifestly in the public interest to we might be able to succeed at motivat- prevent major, long-term damage to the ing citizens to tackle the important chal- environment. Nevertheless, it does not lenges facing our society. threaten all equally. Coastal property Understandably, mobilization is eas- owners have more at stake than those ier when the threat appears in the ½gure in the Rocky Mountains do. Further, it of a terrorist letting loose a highly con- is a global concern–one that the Unit- tagious pathogen at a crowded sports ed States alone cannot deal with even event than in the form of millions of if there were, as there is not, a national commuters releasing tons of carbon di- commitment to act. Climate change is oxide into the atmosphere. The instru-

Dædalus Fall 2007 47 Gary Hart ments of destruction alike cannot be does the size of the polity dictate, or at on the public seen, but we can easily demonize one least circumscribe, the level and meth- interest agent, the terrorist, but not millions of ods of citizen participation? For well respectable vehicle drivers. And in the over two centuries, two visions of Amer- ½rst instance the destruction of human ica have competed to de½ne the scope life is immediate while in the other it oc- of the public interest. One notion is that curs over time. of the Hamiltonian republic of central- Nonetheless, we can capitalize on at ized power, in which leadership is drawn least one powerful human instinct in from the great and the good, if not also order to rouse civic sentiment: the de- the rich and the powerful. The other is sire to provide a better life for one’s pro- the Jeffersonian republic of local self- geny than what oneself enjoyed. People government, in which responsible land- in a capitalist society invest staggering owning citizens govern their own com- amounts of energy, intellect, and skill in munity affairs. The former views the personal wealth production–and ulti- public interest through the prism of con- mately in their private legacy, the wealth centrated wealth, self-selected elites, and they leave their children. Regrettably, it industrial interests. The latter believes is not unusual for these same intelligent, the public interest would be best served energetic, and skillful people to neglect by diverse communities sharing com- their public legacy entirely. mitments, including education, safety, But consider this question raised in and care for the local poor. the New Testament: “What doth it A century ago, author and editor Her- pro½t a man if he gains the whole world bert Croly, as keeper of the Hamiltonian and loses his own soul?” A less spiritual flame, proposed wholesale dedication to version of this question might prompt the “national purpose.” Croly thought self-interested citizens to consider the that it would involve “the nationalizing public interest as integral to their own: of American political, economic, and “What does it pro½t a man if he leaves social life” and an “increasing national- millions of dollars and valuable proper- ization of the American people in ideas, ty in a gated community to his children, in institutions, and in spirit.”2 A product and they live in a polluted, corruptly of the Progressive movement and a pre- governed, atomized world?” cursor of Franklin Roosevelt (whose presidency encompassed the New Deal Still, even if an individual believes that and World War II), Croly strongly resis- a de½nable public interest–and some ted what he (wrongly) believed to be Jef- ethical obligation to promote that inter- ferson’s belief in antifederalism, decen- est–exists, the means to act in the pub- tralization, and fragmentation. lic interest are now obscure, if not re- Croly’s conception of nationalization mote beyond access. How can one mean- takes the notion of the public interest ingfully exercise civic virtue in a democ- to a far, if not its furthest, extreme. The racy of three hundred million people? public interest should not become a con- Are not the levers of power, and there- venient excuse for ‘nationalizing’ politi- fore sovereignty, so far removed from all cal life. Regardless of where one resides but the ½nancial and political elite that on the centralization versus decentral- civic duty is a hollow ideal? Before we can begin to answer these 2 Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life questions, we must think about scale: (New York: Macmillan Company, 1909).

48 Dædalus Fall 2007 ization spectrum, acting in the public in- those . . . concerned about good govern- The commonwealth: terest arguably does not necessitate con- ment do take civic virtue and vice into our pub- centrated political power. Philip Pettit, their purview. Any state that is truly so lic legacy the Australian political theorist, puts it called and is not a state merely in name this way: “A state would not itself dom- must pay attention to virtue; for other- inate its citizens–and could provide a wise the community becomes merely an unique protection against domination alliance.”5 by the private power of internal or ex- What setting is most conducive to ternal enemies–provided that it was the exercise of civic virtue? Surveying able to seek only ends, and employ on- what she believed to be a surprisingly ly means, that derived from the public conservative American revolution, Han- good, the common weal, the res publica.” nah Arendt found that “only Jefferson He continues: “The state had to be con- among the men of the American Revo- strained as far as possible to track the lution ever asked himself the obvious common interests . . . of its citizens.”3 question of how to preserve the revolu- Pettit cites domestic harmony and ex- tionary spirit once the revolution had ternal defense as examples of common come to an end.”6 His solution, she said, interests. In doing so, he approaches a rested in the ward, or elementary, repub- workable de½nition of the public inter- lic, in which citizens would govern local- est: those goods that are best provided ly but under the benign protective um- by citizens together in pursuit of a brella of a federated republican govern- shared enterprise, goods that individual ment. The assumption underlying Jef- citizens cannot provide for themselves. ferson’s republics, wrote Arendt, “was But today, there are people who can pro- that no one could be called happy with- vide for most, if not all, of their needs, out his share of public happiness, that and thus lack concern for the public in- no one could be called free without his terest, as well as a surprising number of experience in public freedom, and that citizens who will never reach this lofty no one could be called either happy or station, but nevertheless think (or more free without participating and having likely, hope and pray) that they will be a share in public power.” For Jefferson, able to someday. the public interest was irreducibly iden- Aristotle’s vision of society as “a part- ti½ed with participating and sharing in nership of free men” supplies the miss- the power of government. ing ingredient in both Croly’s and Pet- If one accepts the idea that the greater tit’s conceptions. While acknowledging the distance between an individual and that “the state cannot be de½ned mere- his or her government, the more dif½- ly as a community dwelling in the same cult it is for that citizen to identify with place at the same time,”4 Aristotle ar- the public interest, it should not be sur- gued that civic virtue, rather than cen- prising that today in the United States tralized state power, is necessary to con- the public interest has become an ab- vert a community of proximate dwellers straction. At the very least, our situation into a partnership of free people: “All leads us to wonder whether, two hun-

3 Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Free- 5 See also Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, dom and Government (Oxford: Clarendon Press, I.1099b. 1997). 6 Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: 4 Aristotle, Politics, III, iv. Viking Press, 1963).

Dædalus Fall 2007 49 Gary Hart dred years ago, Thomas Jefferson might and that the interests of all and not the on the public have been right. Perhaps our founders, few must be brought to bear, this conclu- interest in their reliance on Montesquieu’s idea sion would be doubly true. of a federated republic based on representation, overlooked (or simply sacri- One of the ironies of trying to inspire ½ced) the key republican attribute of di- dedication to the public interest in the rect citizen participation in government. United States is that at the core of our If citizens are too distanced from gov- democracy is a system of rights–and ernment to care about the public inter- among them is the right to be left alone. est, then who is de½ning the public in- Not all democracies espouse this right: terest in our day? Unfortunately, right for example, some democratic nations now, thousands of special interests in make voting mandatory, a practice I ½nd Washington, D.C., are purporting that dif½cult to imagine the United States, their agendas are compatible with, if not with its strong streak of libertarianism, a part of, the greater public interest. But ever adopting. The limits to the ability if one rejects, as I do, the notion that the to compel adherence to our common- public interest is merely the sum of all wealth probably extend only to a certain private interests, then we must question amount of taxation as well as to some their claim. In reality, this clamor for military service during a national crisis. special consideration obscures rather So while we may conclude that a public than reveals the public interest. In con- interest exists, and have some common trast, organizations such as Common notion of what it includes, we have scant Cause and The Concord Coalition solicit power to require citizens to contribute citizen membership in exchange for rep- to it, protect it, or even pay respect to it. resenting the broader public interest in The public interest has little hope of the halls of power. By joining these or- regaining its rightful place in the public ganizations, a citizen may feel that he or consciousness in an age that values ram- she is contributing to the common good, pant self-interest. But there is every hope as those organizations de½ne it. for this restoration if we recapture the Though, at least in theory, we could principle that we must earn our rights call a constitutional convention to de- by performance of our duties. The Cam- ½ne the public interest for our time, this bridge philosopher Quentin Skinner put measure to reconnect the average citi- it best: it is “open to us to meditate on zen to the commonwealth is highly un- the potential relevance of a theory [of likely to take place. Instead, our best the republic] which tells us that, if we chance to reignite civic virtue is through wish to maximize our own individual the “elementary” or “ward” republics, liberty, we must cease to put our trust in where citizens can actively participate in princes, and instead take charge of the de½ning the public interest in their com- public arena ourselves.”7 munities. And though this country still has regional differences, there is a strong likelihood that the composite public interests, devised by tens of thousands of local republics across the nation, are sur- 7 “The Republican Ideal of Political Liberty,” in Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed. Gisela prisingly uniform. Were it made clear Bock, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli in local deliberations that we are all citi- (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, zens of one nation with common hopes, 1990).

50 Dædalus Fall 2007 Christine Todd Whitman

Governing in the public interest: then & now

“Good policy is good politics” was one During most of my time observing of Webster Todd’s favorite political and participating in political life (I am aphorisms. Twice chairman of the New somewhat abashed to admit that it has Jersey State Republican Party, a behind- been more than ½fty years since I attend- the-scenes party leader who was one of ed my ½rst Republican National Conven- those who traveled to Paris to persuade tion–and I have not missed one since), Dwight Eisenhower to come home from most of the politicians I have known Europe and run for president as a Re- and worked with had a fairly clear idea publican, and a delegate to numerous of what was meant by ‘the public inter- Republican National Conventions, Web est.’ Without getting into a discussion Todd was what would have been called of John Stuart Mill and the philosophy back in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s a of utilitarianism, I believe they viewed member in good standing of the Eastern serving the public interest as doing the Republican establishment. He was also greatest good for the greatest number of my father. people. It also meant protecting personal Underlying his belief that good policy liberty, encouraging individual initiative was good politics was his conviction that and opportunity, and safeguarding the government, and those who sought to fundamental rights that every member lead it, had a responsibility to act always of a free society possesses. in the public interest, to serve the needs Contemporary political history (which of the people, from whom government I de½ne as the political history I can re- derives its legitimacy. member) is ½lled with examples of Washington putting the public interest Christine Todd Whitman is cochair of the Repub- above partisan ones. Perhaps the most lican Leadership Council. She served as the ½fti- notable example is the passage of the eth governor of New Jersey and as administrator landmark civil-rights bills in the mid- of the United States Environmental Protection 1960s: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Agency. She is the author of “It’s My Party Too: the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The enact- The Battle for the Heart of the gop and the Fu- ment of these measures required that ture of America” (2005). Republicans and Democrats work together to end the insidiously persistent © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts institutional instruments of racism in & Sciences America.

Dædalus Fall 2007 51 Christine Over the past forty years, the Demo- he ½rst two decades of the modern Todd T Whitman cratic Party has received the lion’s share environmental era (1970–1990) were on of the credit for these bills. Undeniably, also a time when Democrats and Re- the public President Lyndon Johnson staked an publicans were able to come together interest enormous amount of his political capital to serve the public. They constructed on this issue. But he knew, because few an entirely new legal, regulatory, and have ever been better vote-counters than institutional framework for preserving, Johnson, that to succeed, his most im- protecting, and restoring America’s en- portant legislative priority had to have vironment. It was bold and thus contro- the backing of Congressional Republi- versial. cans–and he was right. The passage of By the time Richard Nixon was inau- the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would not gurated president in 1969, there was a have been possible without strong sup- growing consensus in the United States port from the Republican Party–from that the mechanisms then in place to the most-senior Congressional leaders safeguard what was commonly called to the backbenchers. the ecology were not working. Rivers Indeed, the measure would never have were spontaneously combusting. People even come to the floor of the Senate had were choking on thick, dirty smog. Land Senate Republican leader Everett Dirk- all over America was being used as toxic sen of Illinois not broken the Senate’s waste dumps. longest ½libuster in history (led by West During the 1968 campaign, neither of Virginia’s Robert Byrd). And when it the two major party candidates spent did, 80 percent of the Republicans in much time addressing the growing envi- both houses voted for it, as compared ronmental crisis. Other, more immedi- to just 61 percent of the Democrats in ate issues were confronting the voters the House and 69 percent of those in and the nation: Vietnam was tearing the the Senate. nation apart; street riots were igniting One need not be a political science American cities; the country was still Ph.D. to imagine any number of scenar- reeling from the assassinations of Mar- ios in which the Republicans could have tin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kenne- sought to play this issue for its own po- dy. And after the results of that election litical advantage by handing Johnson were decided, there was no love lost in a major legislative defeat. Instead, the Washington between the Republicans, Republicans acted in concert with their who had just taken control of the White leadership counterparts across the aisle House for the ½rst time in eight years, and with the White House to advance and the Democrats, who had been in the greater good. Some will argue that control of Congress since 1955. by later tying the enactment of major Yet despite the highly charged and po- civil-rights legislation to the Democratic litically adversarial atmosphere, a Re- Party, the Republicans were able to split publican president and a Democratic the Democrats and lay the foundations Congress, beginning in 1970, enacted the of the ‘Southern Strategy,’ which broke environmental laws America so badly the Democrats’ century-long strangle- needed. Looking back, we tend to think hold on the South. But that was not the such actions were inevitable. They were thinking at the time, for many Republi- not. Many Republicans were wary of too cans would also face the displeasure of much regulation, and some Democrats their constituents for their vote. thought there could not be enough. But

52 Dædalus Fall 2007 in spite of this difference and all the oth- to cap greenhouse gas emissions, espe- Governing er tumult rocking the American political cially carbon, would be in the public in the public interest: system in the late 1960s and 1970s, the interest. Today’s political environment then & now leaders of both parties refused to let the simply does not support the sort of bi- sort of hyperpartisan gridlock we see in partisanship that advanced such prog- Washington today pollute environmen- ress in the past. tal policymaking. It was in this era that the vast majority We must not forget, however, that of the laws that form the foundation of over the past ½fty years the federal gov- our current approach to environmental ernment’s desire to serve the public in- protection came into being. President terest has also led it into areas in which Nixon established the Environmental it was not best suited to advance the Protection Agency in 1970. The enact- public good. History has demonstrated ment, with bipartisan support, of such that when government acts too aggres- landmark laws as the National Environ- sively, even in pursuit of a common goal, mental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the it can overreach and actually exacerbate Endangered Species Act, and the Clean the ills it seeks to reverse. Water Act quickly followed. The biparti- The 1960s approach to eliminating sanship continued with the subsequent poverty in America best exempli½es this passage, under Presidents Gerald Ford, phenomenon. While Lyndon Johnson’s Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, legislative agenda for eradicating pover- of the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Tox- ty did not require broad bipartisanship ic Substances Control Act, the Emer- for enactment, he was clearly driven, at gency Planning and Community Right to least in part, by what he saw as the pub- Know Act, the Superfund Amendments lic interest. After all, few, either at the and Reauthorization Act, the Oil Pollu- time or since, have argued that reducing tion Act of 1990, and the Pollution Pre- poverty is not a worthy goal. The legiti- vention Act. mate debate has largely been about the Every one of those laws was the prod- means. uct of a Congress at least partially in the Johnson positioned the War on Pover- control of one party and a White House ty as a far-reaching effort to serve the in control of the other. And the votes on public interest by reducing the direct these measures were rarely very close. and ancillary effects that poverty has on The bipartisan effort to build the foun- our society. The War on Poverty repre- dations of American environmental pol- sented the apogee of the New Deal: sub- icy took place during some of the most sequent efforts to overcome poverty by politically contentious times in the past providing a stable and guaranteed source ½fty years. Yet when it came to serving of income, including Richard Nixon’s this greater public interest, the parties Family Assistance Plan, championed were able to get the job done. by Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Since 1992, on the other hand, we have were never able to gain much political seen just one piece of major environ- traction. mental legislation: the Brown½elds Revi- It was not until this ‘war’ was nearly in talization Act in 2002. The need for fur- its fourth decade that policymakers from ther environmental action at the federal both sides of the aisle (not just from the level exists. But nowadays few serious right) began to acknowledge publicly policy analysts argue that federal action that many of the programs enacted un-

Dædalus Fall 2007 53 Christine der Johnson were miring families (or assistance. The cap provided a much- Todd Whitman what was left of them) in an endless needed incentive to welfare recipients to on and unbroken cycle of dependency and ½nd work. We also recognized, however, the public despondency and had to be changed. that we could not expect welfare recipi- interest On the Republican side of the political ents, many of whom had never held a divide, Jack Kemp perhaps best summed steady job, to enter the workforce with- up the failure federal welfare policy had out signi½cant levels of training and sup- become with the memorable declara- port. In New Jersey, the support included tion, “The War on Poverty is over, and transportation grants, child-care assis- the poor lost.” On the Democratic side, tance, educational and job-training Bill Clinton, during his 1992 presidential grants, and a state Earned Income Tax campaign, promised to “end welfare as Credit. we know it.” He repeated those exact By the time I left of½ce in January words when, in 1996, he signed the Per- 2001, the welfare caseload in New Jersey sonal Responsibility and Work Opportu- had dropped from 96,500 families (when nity Act, which required states to devel- I signed welfare reform) to 45,000–a op programs to move welfare recipients decrease of more than 50 percent with- off welfare and to work. out the commensurate flood of home- At both the beginning and the conclu- less people predicted by the critics. The sion of the federal government’s domi- progress we made in New Jersey was al- nant role in delivering direct cash assis- so reflected across the nation. In August tance to the nation’s poor, one can argue 2006, on the tenth anniversary of federal that policymakers were acting in what welfare reform, the U.S. Department of they saw as the public interest–lifting Health and Human Services (hhs) re- people out of poverty so that they could ported that welfare caseloads for fami- live more productive and healthy lives, lies nationwide had decreased by 59 per- lives that contribute to the greater good cent, while caseloads for individuals rather than detract from it. had declined by 65 percent. In addition, What changed over the years was the hhs reported that child-poverty rates policy designed to achieve that goal. It dropped from 20.5 percent to 17.8 per- evolved from the belief that what the cent, lifting 1.4 million children out of poor need is a reliable ½nancial floor on poverty. which they can build a better future, to As Larry DeWitt, a public historian at the realization that any effort to help the U.S. Social Security Administration raise the poor out of poverty requires and self-described skeptic about welfare more than ½nancial support. Experience reform, put it in an essay he wrote in in the decade since the end of welfare 2005, “The policy-history narrative here ‘as we knew it’ suggests that providing turns out that about half the welfare people with the incentives, training, and population has been successfully moved supports needed to enter and remain in from dependency to self-support, their the workforce is more successful at re- employment has proven stable, child- ducing the number of welfare recipients hood poverty has declined, and no social than providing income guarantees. crisis attended this shift . . . . I [was] sim- In New Jersey, the welfare-reform leg- ply wrong about this law. The historical islation I proposed and signed into law evidence has trumped [my] political and in 1997 set a ½ve-year lifetime cap on the ideological suppositions.” eligibility of recipients to receive public

54 Dædalus Fall 2007 The history of welfare policy in the to that segment of the electorate I call Governing the social fundamentalists. in the pub- United States over the past forty years lic interest: provides an instructive example of The social fundamentalists are those then & now how the political process can work– voters who base their votes entirely on and even change course–to meet the their rigid positions on a narrow list of public interest. Along with the passage social issues, such as abortion, embryon- of civil-rights and environmental legis- ic stem cell research, gay marriage, and lation, which clearly put the public in- end-of-life decision making. They are terest ahead of partisan political inter- motivated, single-issue litmus test voters ests, it begs the question: why do the whose perceived contributions to the elected branches of the federal govern- election of a Republican Congress and ment seem unable to address the pub- of George W. Bush to the White House lic interest today? have held the Republican Party hostage Over the past decade, the commit- for the last ten years. ment to serving the public interest, The Terri Schiavo tragedy is perhaps which led to action on dif½cult and vex- the most egregious example of the Re- ing problems, has been replaced by a publicans in Washington caving in to commitment to serving much narrower the power of the social-fundamentalist interests, not just in political campaigns section of its base. Schiavo was the Flor- (where that has always been the case), ida woman who fell into a vegetative but also once the elections are over and state in 1990 and spent nearly ½fteen the time for governing begins. years being kept alive by what anyone The increasing and well-documented would de½ne as extraordinary means. use of divisive wedge issues that appeal In late 2004, when her husband decid- to narrow but electorally valuable con- ed to end those efforts, and the Florida stituencies has made it increasingly dif- courts af½rmed that he had the right to ½cult to govern. This is particularly true make that decision, her care became a when both of the elected branches of the cause célèbre for the social fundamen- government are controlled by the same talists. party. All too often, the result is the loss As the day when Schiavo’s feeding of any effective checks and balances on tube would be removed drew closer, the ability of the majority party to drive emails and phone calls from groups its wedge issues once it is in power. who wanted Congress to overrule the When paired with the disproportionate decision flooded Capitol Hill. Peggy ability of that party’s base to demand Noonan wrote that unless Republicans action on its most important partisan in Congress acted to prevent the remov- (but not necessarily widely popular) is- al of the feeding tube, “they will face a sues, it is a recipe for the triumph of par- reckoning from a sizeable portion of tisan political interests over the public their own base.” And so, Congress acted interest. with unusual speed, and President Bush Over the past several years, too much flew back from his ranch in Texas, to of our political leaders’ attention has sign the bill into law. The sway of those been consumed with serving the elec- fundamentalists was such that even toral masters who are not shy about some moderate Democrats ended up claiming credit for putting them in of- voting for that intervention. ½ce. Nowhere has this been more obvi- What seemed like a certain political ous than in the Republican Party’s fealty winner did not turn out that way. The

Dædalus Fall 2007 55 Christine leaders of the gop mistook the passion- and Majority Leader Harry Reid have a Todd Whitman ately and effectively expressed demands dif½cult time resisting the pent-up de- on of the social fundamentalists for broad- mand in their caucuses to make every the public er support among the American people. issue they tackle every bit as partisan as interest Polls taken shortly after Congress and they perceive the Republicans to have the president acted showed that huge acted since 1994–a perception that is majorities of the public, even among based, at least in part, on reality. self-identi½ed evangelical and conservative Republican voters, opposed fed- What are we to do about those press- eral intervention in this case. An abc ing issues in which the public interest poll found that 70 percent of those asked is being neglected? Climate change, im- thought Congressional intervention in migration reform, the continued solven- this case was inappropriate, while a usa cy of Social Security and Medicare, the Today/cnn/Gallup Poll reported that 76 growing number of uninsured, and enor- percent of people disapproved of Con- mous federal de½cits all loom, yet they gress’s action. are not being addressed. One answer As can happen when a victim is held may be found in divided government, hostage for a long period of time, the by which I mean control of one of the gop has developed a case of Stockholm elected branches by one party (or split Syndrome; we are now so closely iden- between the two) and control of the oth- ti½ed with those who have been holding er branch by the other party. us captive that we do not seem to under- Through most of the political history stand that the best interests of the pub- I have witnessed, divided government lic–and often of the party–are fre- has been the norm. In the ½fty-one quently not aligned with those of the years since I attended my ½rst Republi- social fundamentalists. can National Convention in 1956, con- As a result, the Republican Party is in trol of both houses of Congress and of danger of losing its commitment to its the White House by one political party historic principles: a strong national has been the reality for just eighteen defense, a foreign policy that is engaged of those years. But because political with the rest of the world, ½scal respon- parties will always want to gain as much sibility, less government interference in control of the institutions of govern- people’s lives, opportunity for all, and ment as they can, the adage, ‘Be careful the preservation of our environment. what you wish for, you just might get it,’ These are the principles that have long serves as an appropriate caution. de½ned the Republican Party, and they During the seven years I served as gov- are principles that also serve the public ernor of New Jersey, my party controlled interest. both houses of our state legislature–and The Democrats are facing much the by fairly comfortable margins. Holding same challenge from the left of their such control is not without its share of party. If this danger is not readily appar- political bene½ts. The con½rmation of ent, it has much to do with the fact that nominees to judicial- and executive- the Democrats have been the minority branch positions is (usually) easier. The in Congress until recently, and have been enactment of major policy initiatives is shut out of the White House since the far likelier. And the executive is largely 2000 election. As 2007 unfolds, I would spared dubious, politically driven ‘over- not be surprised if Speaker Nancy Pelosi sight’ investigations.

56 Dædalus Fall 2007 It does, however, also have its down- ed for the protection of the life and Governing sides. On numerous occasions it would health of the mother. I also made clear in the public interest: have aided my attempts to govern from that I would veto any bill that did not. then & now the sensible center if the Democrats When the legislature passed the bill had controlled one (and one would have with its original language, I had no been enough) of the two houses of the choice but to veto the bill. Subsequent- legislature. This arrangement would ly, the legislature overrode my veto (the have blunted the power of the social fun- only override during my tenure as gover- damentalists within the Republican cau- nor), and the bill became law. But not cuses to push their agenda, and it would for long: the state Supreme Court, as ex- have helped create a more conducive at- pected, threw it out as unconstitutional. mosphere for ½nding a reasonable com- Had we Republicans not had complete promise on contentious issues. Nowhere control of both elected branches of state would this have been more useful than government, we could have enacted a in 1997, when the issue of partial-birth constitutionally sound law regulating abortion surfaced. late-term abortions. It would not have That year, I was up for reelection as met the litmus test of the fundamental- governor, a pro-choice governor in a ists, but it would have put an end to the pro-choice state. (No pro-life candidate vast majority of late-term abortions. has won a statewide election in New The irony is that had a compromise been Jersey since Roe v. Wade.) Knowing the reached, it would have represented the Democrats would not nominate a pro- ½rst set of restrictions of any sort on life candidate, I expected the abortion abortions in New Jersey. As it is, nothing issue to be off the table during my re- has changed. This is just one situation election campaign. It would have been, where divided government would have except for the fact that the pro-life fac- resulted in better public policy. tion of the Republican caucus in the low- The national public-policy achieve- er house (which was also up for reelec- ments I discussed earlier were, in every tion) was demanding passage of a par- event, the product of either actually di- tial-birth abortion bill. vided or essentially divided government. To forestall primary challenges, many In the case of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 pro-choice Republicans also decided to (the exception among them), the Dem- back the legislation, even agreeing to ocrats controlled both Congress and the leave out any exceptions for the life or White House. However, because of the physical health of the mother. They profound regional split within the Dem- knew that having sworn to uphold the ocratic caucus on this particular issue, state’s constitution, I could not sign a divided government was essentially the bill that did not protect the life and reality when this issue was on the table. health of the mother. Their lawyers also Unfortunately, I do not expect the re- assured them that, even if I did sign it, cent takeover of Congress by the Dem- New Jersey’s Supreme Court would like- ocrats–and the reinstallation of divided ly rule it unconstitutional. government–to lead to an embrace of Hoping to ½nd common ground and the public interest over the next eighteen avoid a veto override, a court challenge, months. The absurdly early presidential- and a bad law, I let the legislature know nominating process, the palpable hunger that I would sign a bill that banned all of the Democrats to regain the White late-term abortions, so long as it provid- House, the toxic political environment

Dædalus Fall 2007 57 Christine in Washington, and the political weak- Todd Whitman ness of the Bush administration guaran- on tee that little of substance will come out the public of Washington before the end of the interest president’s term. Nevertheless, I am not so pessimistic as to think that our political system will continue to ignore the public interest to the extent it has in recent years. I believe that the wisdom behind my father’s maxim that good policy makes for good politics will again become apparent and compelling. The status quo is simply unsustainable. It is, however, up to the American people to demand the change and to participate in the process.

58 Dædalus Fall 2007 Robert N. Bellah

Ethical politics: reality or illusion?

It would be well, before reflecting on is not ethical. Indeed, almost by de½ni- whether the idea of ethical politics is a tion, in the minds of many Americans, reality or an illusion, to consider brief- politics is unethical. ly the meaning of ethical politics, or to Yet we claim to be a free, democratic, put it bluntly, whether many Americans and self-governing society. For most see any relation between ethics and pol- people all those terms are positive. In- itics.1 As we found out in our research deed, we tend to divide the world be- for Habits of the Heart, most Americans tween democratic societies, which are think they know what they mean by pol- good, and undemocratic ones, which itics (and by politicians), and it is not are bad. But how do we exercise our free- nice. Politics is the way some people get dom, how do we govern ourselves in a what they want by using undue influ- democratic society, except through poli- ence, questionable tactics, even thinly tics? And if democracy is good, how can veiled forms of bribery. If this wide- the political practices that make it work spread understanding of politics is cor- be inherently corrupt? rect, then the answer to the question my One might say, it is not that democrat- title asks is clear from the start: politics ic politics are inherently bad; it is just that ours at the moment are bad and Robert N. Bellah, a Fellow of the American we need to reform them. Fair enough. Academy since 1967, is Elliott Professor of Soci- Most institutions, families, marriages, ology Emeritus at the University of California, and individuals could use some reform. Berkeley. His books include “Tokugawa Religion” But will just putting stricter rules on lob- (1957), “Beyond Belief” (1970), and “Varieties byists make our politics ethical, or are of Civil Religion and Uncivil Religion” (1980). there deeper issues that we need to think With Richard Madsen, William Sullivan, Ann about, issues concerning both ethics and Swidler, and Steven Tipton, he coauthored “Hab- politics? its of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment When I was asked to write this essay, in American Life” (1985) and “The Good So- I was examining ancient Greece, the ciety” (1991). Most recently, he coedited “The Robert Bellah Reader” (with Steven M. Tipton, 1 This essay is a revision of a talk ½rst delivered 2007). as the Henry Bugbee Lecture in Philosophy in the President’s Lecture Series at the University © 2007 by Robert N. Bellah of Montana, April 3, 2006.

Dædalus Fall 2007 59 Robert N. birthplace of democracy, and of the very and makes it easier for them to accept Bellah on terms ‘politics’ and ‘ethics.’ Our democ- differences of opinion and compromises the public racy, a representative democracy, is very when opinions are divided. interest different from ancient democracy, a di- A long tradition of democratic theo- rect democracy in which all citizens, ry also holds that only citizens who can or most of them, actively participated govern themselves can effectively partic- in their own governance. Nevertheless, ipate in governing others. If, as Aristot- Alexis de Tocqueville, in Democracy in le argued, politics in the true sense in- America, found something that he con- volves governing and being governed in sidered similar to ancient direct democ- turn, we must know how to put the com- racy in the New England town meeting. mon good before our own. But does that And we can still see direct democracy not run up against the very nature of in- at work in many civic associations and dividuals, which compels them to put in many religious congregations. their own interests ½rst? And does that Tocqueville argued that without this not contradict the teaching of Adam network of voluntary associations, civ- Smith that if we all pursue our self-inter- il society would not be possible. These est, things will work out for the best? forms of association, and the practices But if we read not only The Wealth of that they require, help to create the Nations but also his equally important “habits of the heart”–the kinds of in- book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, we dividuals and the way they treat each will ½nd Smith saying that no good gov- other–necessary for democracy. Some ernment can exist on the basis of self- may think that all one needs to have a interest alone. His notion of the invisible democracy are elections, but the current spectator, whom we must always keep in situation in the Middle East is teaching mind if we are to be truly ethical persons us that elections are not suf½cient. In (his version of what Immanuel Kant lat- fact, without democratic habits of the er called the categorical imperative) re- heart, free elections may simply repro- quires that we put the common interest duce the tyrannical institutions that are above our own. Smith believed that the to be found not just in the government pursuit of self-interest was a proper but throughout the society. principle in the economy, but not in pol- The experience of direct democracy (if itics. Indeed, without a framework of not at the national level, then at the level ethical politics, a purely self-interested of the many associations and groups that economy would quickly lose the trust make up society) is crucial for an effec- that even economic transactions require. tive democracy, because democracy is a (Later, I will raise questions as to wheth- form of self-government, in contrast to er we understand self-interest in the monarchy or tyranny, which are forms deepest sense.) of government by one person, or to aris- What I have been suggesting is that if tocracy or oligarchy, which are forms of we really want a democratic society, eth- government by a small group of people. ical politics is not an option–it is a re- Direct democracy, in whatever context, quirement. Political philosophers all the gives us the experience of self-govern- way back to Plato believed that different ment. Ideally, it should create a sense forms of political regime are linked to of what we call community, what the different types of person, traits of char- Greeks called koinonia, the civic friend- acter, and principles of behavior. One ship that creates trust between members influential version of that idea was that

60 Dædalus Fall 2007 of the Baron de Montesquieu, who lived clause might mean: democracy is the Ethical politics: in France in the early eighteenth centu- worst form of government. We could reality or ry, and whose book, The Spirit of the Laws, imagine Plato agreeing with the ½rst illusion? was influential among the founders of clause, but also with the second, for he the American republic. hated tyranny (or despotism) and had Montesquieu wrote about three types only the most fanciful idea of monarchy of government: despotism, monarchy, –that philosophers should be kings, an and democracy. The principle of despot- idea he had no hope would ever be put ism is fear: one must always worry about in practice. Indeed, after the excesses of the arbitrary action of the despot. The the Thirty Tyrants in late-½fth-century principle of monarchy is honor: Monar- Athens, Plato came to think of the ex- chy is characterized by signi½cant inter- treme democracy that had preceded it mediate institutions led by nobles who as a golden age. Still, Plato was a great compete with each other. Motivated critic of democracy. by ambition, nobles are jealous of their Fifth-century Athens was perhaps honor. The principle of democracy, how- the only example of true–that is, direct ever, is virtue: Those who rule must con- –democracy that history has ever seen, sider themselves under the same laws as at least in a city of any size. We must re- those they rule. Thus they must put the member, though, that Athens, while the common good above their own. largest Greek city in its day, had a popu- Would Montesquieu consider the lation in the ½fth century of not much United States today to be a democracy more than two hundred thousand. And or a monarchy? One early-twentieth- Athenian citizenship was limited: wom- century philosopher, George Santayana, en could not vote and slaves were not had this to say: “If a noble and civilized even citizens. Also, resident aliens not democracy is to subsist, the common only could not vote, they could not be citizen must be something of a saint and naturalized: only if their father was an something of a hero. We see, therefore, Athenian could they become citizens. how justly flattering and profound, and Even with these restrictions, the fact at the same time how omi nous, was that every citizen, regardless of wealth, Montesquieu’s saying that the principle had the same rights and could hold any of democracy is virtue.” How ominous of½ce is unparalleled in history. Most indeed. Most of the founders of our Greek cities, though they included most republic thought it unlikely to survive citizens in the assembly, reserved the any great period of time. John Adams important of½ces for the aristocrats or thought it would last about ½fty years. the wealthy. Athens in the early ½fth We think they were wrong, but if we ex- century removed this restriction, placed amine closely what a democracy really all power in the hands of the democratic is, we might not be so sure. assembly, and chose its of½cials by lot or by election. Winston Churchill is widely believed Because of the great achievements of to have said, “Democracy is the worst the Greeks (particularly cultural, culmi- form of government, except for all the nating in ½fth-century Athens in art, lit- others.” That statement is usually inter- erature, and thought), we are tempted to preted somehow as a ringing endorse- forget that the Greeks were always war- ment of democracy, which is a conve- riors, and that Greek citizens were war- nient way of avoiding what its initial rior-citizens, called very frequently to

Dædalus Fall 2007 61 Robert N. ½ght for their cities. The infantry, com- the territories. Douglas argued that the Bellah on posed of moderately wealthy farmers, decision should be left to the citizens of the public had been the backbone of democracy the territories, most immediately Kan- interest everywhere it had appeared in Greece. sas. Lincoln argued for a federal prohibi- But after the great naval battle at Salamis tion of the extension of slavery because in 480 bc, when the Athenian navy de- slavery is inherently wrong and should feated the much larger Persian fleet, the not be left to the majority in the territo- navy became the main military force of ries to decide. Majority rule may be bet- Athens, the basis of the empire that Ath- ter than any other form of government, ens proceeded to build–½rst as a defen- but majority rule cannot decide the issue sive alliance against Persia, then as ter- of good and evil. Let us not forget that ritory to be exploited for the gain and Douglas, not Lincoln, won the senatorial glory of Athens. election. The need for oarsmen in the Greek Michael Mann in his book The Dark ships gave a new status and income to Side of Democracy has detailed the crimes the Athenian lower class, those with- that democratic nations have commit- out property, from whom the oarsmen ted, especially in situations of war or were drawn. Since they were the basis ethnic conflict.2 I myself am old enough of Athenian military supremacy, they to remember the evacuation of Japanese had to be fully included in the assembly, Americans from the West Coast and the source of all power in the Athenian their relocation in concentration camps state. That these oarsmen loved their after Pearl Harbor. Although it was done country there is little doubt; that they by executive order, not by popular vote, had an interest in the extension and there was no public outcry. Moreover, maintenance of the Athenian empire is at the height of the McCarthy period also without doubt. It was the empire in the 1950s, an experiment took place that undermined Athenian virtue, gave where pollsters read to people an un- rise to demagogic politicians, involved identi½ed text of what was in fact the brutal oppression of many conquered Bill of Rights. A majority of the sample cities, and ½nally led to complete politi- said they disagreed with it, and many cal and military disaster. To top it off, it said it sounded like Communist propa- was the atmosphere of anxiety and fear ganda. One comes back to Santayana’s following political and military disaster remark that the idea that the principle that led to the democratic murder of the of a democracy is virtue is profound, one man for whom Plato had the great- but also ominous. What happens in a est respect in the world, Socrates. No democracy when virtue fails? And since wonder Plato was a critic of democracy. virtue is fragile and vice hardy, should He was not alone. It will probably be we be surprised when virtue fails? a surprising assertion to many readers, but the central icon of American history, Several examples of democratic failure Abraham Lincoln, was, in one sense, a that I have already mentioned–slavery, critic of democracy. Recall the Lincoln- the treatment of Japanese Americans in Douglas debates of 1858, when Lincoln World War II, and one could add the eth- and Douglas were running against each other for the of½ce of senator in Illinois. 2 Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: The crux of the debates had to do with Explaining Ethnic Cleansing (New York: Cam- whether slavery should be extended to bridge University Press, 2005).

62 Dædalus Fall 2007 nic cleansing of Native Americans– remarked on how lobbying creates imbal- Ethical ances in the debate on national issues. But politics: have to do with the question of inclu- reality or sion and exclusion. Tocqueville warned the consequences on international ones illusion? against the tyranny of the majority: the are far more severe. Who, in the nation- democratic majority often feels little or state, is there to represent global or inter- no obligation to minorities and badly national interest? Nobody gets elected to mistreats them. do just that, and if you do take an interna- But today we face another huge prob- tionalist stand, you may be lucky if you are lem: in the age of globalization there is not made to pay for it by losing support no world democracy. Democracies exist from those on whom you do depend to get only within nations, and democratic na- elected, who put you there to look after tions on the whole feel little in the way their interests, not those of anyone else.3 of ethical obligations to outsiders. It is Lloyd focuses on the two great issues often said that globalization means the that can only be addressed globally, but end of the age of the nation-state, but in that national democracies seem inca- any absolute sense that is clearly untrue. pable of dealing with, largely because It is particularly untrue with respect to of their mistaken notion that looking democracy: there is no democracy be- out for themselves alone is their prima- yond the nation-state. The United Na- ry task: the issue of global warming and tions, weak and ineffective though it is, environmental degradation; and the is- is better than nothing–but a global de- sue of global inequality, the enormous mocracy it is not. What are the conse- contrast between rich and poor nations, quences of the fact that democracy is with all the consequences that go with limited to nation-states? that. “It is clearly intolerable,” he writes, In a sense, our problem is Athens’s “for a tiny proportion of the world’s problem writ large: how could the Athe- population to live in the greatest luxu- nians grant citizenship to natives of ry while many of the rest have no hope their colonial cities, many of them hun- of escape from grinding poverty.”4 He dreds of miles away, when they could sums up our situation, one so dangerous never attend the Athenian assembly that even the self-interest of the privi- (even if the Athenians had wanted them leged, one would think, would lead them to, which they did not)? The Athenian to action: “The main dangers in the assembly instead acquiesced to extraor- present geopolitical situation are clear, dinary brutality against rebellious cities the threat to the environment world- in their empire, in the name, by the way, wide, the ways in which increasing in- of national security. equality fuels the ½res of future resent- G. E. R. Lloyd, the British classicist, ment, the frailty of the geopolitical or- in a chapter of his 2004 book, Ancient der.” As a citizen of the United King- Worlds, Modern Reflections, entitled “A dom, he points out that in much of the Critique of Democracy,” points out the world, the United States is seen as the basic contradictions between democracy within nations and justice in the world: 3 G. E. R. Lloyd, Ancient Worlds, Modern Reflec- In the current political situation that every tions: Philosophical Perspectives on Greek and Chi- democracy faces, there is no advantage for nese Science and Culture (New York: Oxford Uni- any statesman in being an internationalist versity Press, 2004), 182. and often considerable disadvantages. I 4 Ibid., 184.

Dædalus Fall 2007 63 Robert N. problem, not the solution, because it ciple of a monarchy is not virtue but Bellah on has become “a law unto itself,” believ- honor. He also uses the word ambition, the public ing that “if the rest of the world does which makes more sense to us today. interest not accept U.S. policies, too bad for Ambition can replace virtue in a monar- the rest of the world.”5 chy because the people have ceased to Fortunately, while Lloyd’s diagnosis be self-governing; they accept the ma- of the “weaknesses of democracy at chinery of government, the “springs and both the national and the international wheels,” as Montesquieu puts it, that level is utterly bleak, and the prognosis have been set up by others, and only at- is almost equally so,”6 he does not com- tempt to increase their own power and pletely despair. There is always the pos- riches within the limits of rules set by sibility of reform, and despair can be a those above them. To some extent this self-ful½lling prophecy. is inevitable in a representative democracy, which cannot engage the full re- If the problem of Athenian democracy sponsibility of its citizens, but if Tocque- was corruption at home and imperial ar- ville was right, some degree of direct de- rogance abroad, is there perhaps a paral- mocracy at the local level is necessary lel, even at an enormously greater scale, to keep alive the virtue without which in our own situation? Let me begin by democratic freedom cannot survive. taking a closer look at our own national Unfortunately, we have good evidence, democracy, particularly the degree to most comprehensively summed up by which we have lost the very ethos that Robert Putnam in his book Bowling makes democracy possible. That is, let Alone,7 but con½rmed by Robert Wuth- me begin with the question of virtue. now’s book Loose Connections8 and many Socrates was speaking not only to his fel- other studies, that the societies, groups, low Athenians, but to all of us, when he and associations that have provided the said our ½rst concern should be with the experience of direct democracy to Amer- virtue of our own souls. In a democracy icans are all in more or less precipitate we govern and are governed in turn. And decline and have been so for thirty years in the most powerful democracy in the or more. Our connections have become world, we to a signi½cant extent govern looser not only to groups and associa- the world. Every time we vote, however tions but to jobs and even families. More problematic our electoral system is, we and more we are forced to make it on are exerting that power to govern. Are our own, and ‘personal responsibility’ we worthy of it? has become a kind of mantra that we Although we are responsible for the should not expect help from anyone else virtue of our own souls, it will be ex- because we have to make it all alone. tremely unlikely that many of us will This is just the social situation in be virtuous if we live in a vicious soci- which ambition replaces virtue and ety. We need to be concerned, therefore, with the health of our society as well as 7 Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse the health of our souls. As I noted pre- and Revival of American Community (New York: viously, Montesquieu held that the prin- Simon and Schuster, 2000). 8 Robert Wuthnow, Loose Connections: Joining 5 Ibid., 185. Together in America’s Fragmented Communities (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 6 Ibid., 184. 1998).

64 Dædalus Fall 2007 monarchy replaces democracy. But we ecovering our capacity to govern our- Ethical R politics: still have elections–how can we be a selves and our world effectively will re- reality or monarchy? Tocqueville had an answer quire reforms that are simultaneously illusion? to that. He called it “soft despotism,” in social and ideological. Putnam speaks which the outer trappings of democracy of declining social capital, a metaphor survive but in fact people who have lost I am not fond of and which he told me their freedom rise up every four years to privately he had chosen so as to seem elect their rulers and then sink back into to be doing ‘hard’ political science, by the torpor of their slavery. Elective mon- avoiding such a ‘soft’ term as communi- archy is not an unheard-of political form ty. Whatever the term, we need to rein- in human history. With the rise of the vigorate or create anew the thousands of imperial presidency, maybe what we small direct democracies that give our have is an elective empire. Montesquieu citizens the experience of governing and reminds us that monarchies can do great being governed in turn. things, but at a price: “In monarchies,” Putnam reminds us that there are he writes, “policy effects great things two kinds of social capital: bonding with as little virtue as possible.” Indeed, and bridging. Bonding social capital “in well-regulated monarchies, they are creates groups that have internal soli- almost all good subjects and very few darity. That, as such, is to the good. good men.” But if that solidarity stops at the bound- My question is not a rhetorical one aries of the given group, it can produce and certainly not a sentimental one, as many problems as it solves. We also for the gravest consequences hang on need bridging social capital, the capac- it. Can a society that has become a kind ity to reach out to other groups to cre- of monarchical machine run by private ate larger solidarities. If we have groups ambition, effectively lacking in virtue with only bonding and not bridging so- and human goodness, be able to face the cial capital, we have what we most fear: enormous ethical problems of the world a society that is nothing but a collection today? So when in my title I ask wheth- of special-interest groups, each seeking er an ethical politics is a reality or an il- its own good with no regard for the lusion, I am not asking about bribery or common good. And, of course, this is deceit among our politicians, but about the most challenging issue that faces us the state of our society that makes such in the world as a whole: can we create bribery and deceit routine. My question bridging social capital that will cross is indeed a daunting one, a double one national boundaries and create interna- in fact: can we recover the dignity of tional solidarity? Indeed, we have such politics as a calling for every citizen in a groups, relatively small and fragile, but democracy, one requiring all the virtue exemplary of what we need at a much we can muster, and then can we extend larger scale: Doctors Without Borders, that democratic citizenship so that in Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and some signi½cant sense we can be citizens a host of others. of the world, responsible for the future Voluntary associations may be weaker of our planet as well as of our own soci- now than they were through most of ety? Not easy, you say. Surely not easy, the twentieth century, but they are not but think of the consequences if we fail. absent in the United States. One of Putnam’s more hopeful ½ndings is that through most of the twentieth century,

Dædalus Fall 2007 65 Robert N. up until about 1960 or 1970, our social politics that might help us deal with the Bellah on capital was increasing. What went up enormous problems that we are largely the public for decades has now been in decline for ignoring at present. interest decades, but such recent shifts show that So far, I have assumed a dichotomy we can change directions again and gain that our culture takes for granted, name- our sense of social citizenship rather ly, the contrast between self-interest than lose it even more. And the interna- and concern for the common good. The tional organizations, or the nongovern- easiest solution to this contrast in our mental organizations (ngos), some of culture is the idea that if we all pursue which I have mentioned, seem to be our self-interest and are as sel½sh as growing. possible, the result will be the common good, an idea I noted earlier Adam Smith We need not only a social transforma- did not endorse. The great corporate tion but also an ideological one. They scandals of recent years have tarnished entail each other. Here the challenge is the slogan of the 1980s that ‘greed is daunting, and the relevant initiatives good’, but the idea is alive and well; of- not yet very coherent. Through much of ten the mantra of ‘individual responsi- modern history some form of socialist bility’ is only another version of the ideology has countered the ideology of same thing. capitalism. While the free-market ideol- The idea of self-interest–so natural ogy espoused entrepreneurship as the particularly in the Anglo-American tra- solution to all our problems, socialism dition, where utilitarianism, usually in was concerned with the welfare of those a fairly debased form, is the common whom entrepreneurship exploited or ideological coin–has had its critics. abandoned. The terrible excesses of Tocqueville proposed one answer that Communist tyranny have given all kinds is appealing to many today: the idea of of socialism a bad name, although in self-interest rightly understood. What much of the world outside the United Tocqueville is really pointing to is the States political parties with ‘socialist’ difference between short-term and in their names continue to win elections. long-term self-interest. What seems de- But even these parties have been co- sirable now may prove harmful to us in opted in many cases by neoliberalism, a the long run. Unless we keep that long moderate form of American free-market run in mind, self-interest will be self-de- fundamentalism, so that a robust alter- feating. native to the idea that the market will One example of this is the notion solve all problems has been hard to ½nd that reducing carbon-dioxide emissions of late. would be bad for our economy–the rea- Where so many have been trying, with son we have not rati½ed the Kyoto Pro- no great success, to formulate a new vi- tocol. If we do not act to halt or slow sion that would offer a serious alterna- global warming, we will be irreparably tive to free-market fundamentalism, I harming ourselves, or if not ourselves, will not even attempt such a task, impor- then our children and grandchildren. tant though it is. Rather, what I want to Most people, however sel½sh, do care do in the rest of this essay is draw from about their children and grandchildren. my work on ancient Greece and ask Thus, if self-interest leads us not to care some preliminary philosophical ques- about global warming, self-interest tions about the very basis of an ethical rightly understood will lead us to care. I

66 Dædalus Fall 2007 have no problem with this argument: to knows that one’s real self-interest is do- Ethical politics: the degree it works I am all for it. ing the good, that behaving unjustly is reality or I want, however, with the help of Pla- a disease of the soul, and no one would illusion? to, to raise an even deeper question, one consciously choose disease over health. related to the idea that the principle of It is important to remember, because democracy is virtue. That is the question the teachings of Christianity put things of the real meaning of self-interest, leav- somewhat differently (though I do not ing aside short- or long-term issues. Is it think that in the end they are antitheti- ever in our self-interest to do something cal to the teaching of Socrates/Plato in that will harm others? This is the cen- this regard), that Socrates is not telling tral issue in Plato’s early masterpiece, Callicles to stop thinking of himself and Gorgias, described by Charles Kahn, the start thinking of others. Socrates is tell- great scholar of ancient philosophy, as ing Callicles to really start thinking of the founding document of Western mor- himself, to ask himself what kind of soul al and political philosophy.9 he wants to have. For to Plato our com- Plato has Socrates face three succes- mon contrast between egoism and altru- sive interlocutors, each of whom be- ism, a secularized version of Pietist Prot- lieves that doing whatever one wants estantism, is meaningless. A true con- justi½es ignoring moral restraints. The cern for the good of the self would lead ½rst two, Gorgias and Polus, Socrates us to see that only a just self is good, and disposes of fairly quickly. In the end, a just self treats all others justly. both are ashamed to admit that they jus- In short, according to Plato, nothing tify immoral behavior in the name of is more injurious to the self than harm- self-interest. It is the third, Callicles, a ing others, and no one who properly rising young Athenian politician of Pla- understood himself would do such a to’s own aristocratic class, who is the thing. Our true desire, our deepest need, most dangerous. Callicles says he is not is to have a good self, and a good self ashamed to say openly what everyone acts well to all others, even to not re- really believes, namely, that one should turning evil for evil, an idea that cen- get what one wants at whatever cost as turies of readers have seen as parallel to long as one can get away with it, that the teachings of another ancient ½gure success and riches are all that count. who lived in a nearby country. Indeed, Socrates, who defends the idea of jus- when Callicles gets really exasperated tice–that is, treating everyone justly and because Socrates is making him see that never harming anyone, even those who even he is ashamed of his own sel½sh- have harmed oneself–does not just de- ness, he warns Socrates that going nounce Callicles’s idea; he tries to show around talking as he does could end up Callicles that he himself does not really getting him killed. believe it, because he, like everyone else, I am suggesting that an alternative ideology to the one that dominates our society today, an alternative that seems il- 9 Charles H. Kahn, Plato and The Socratic Dia- lusory to the realists of our time, but logue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form that is the only way to make ethical pol- (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, itics a reality, is a recovery of a true un- 1996), 125. Kahn actually says, “Plato may be said to have founded moral philosophy twice: derstanding of the self, one validated once in the Crito and a second time in the Gor- not only by Plato’s moral philosophy, gias.” but also by most of the great religions

Dædalus Fall 2007 67 Robert N. and philosophies of mankind. We live in add, a good self and a good world entail Bellah on a society obsessed with the self: above each other. the public all, most of us want to be rich, powerful, However we might want to formulate interest beautiful, and admired, or at least one of a counterideology to the dominant one the above; and I certainly cannot claim (could we say a really democratic one to be an exception. But instead of saying in contrast to our present monarchical we are too obsessed with the self, per- one?), we could certainly start with Pla- haps we should say we are not obsessed to’s idea of justice as essential in the soul enough; we have not looked deeply and in society, and with Montesquieu’s enough into what we really want, which application of democratic virtue with is the just self, capable of treating others the principles of equality and frugality. justly in the context of a just society. Frugality might seem an old-fashioned In Gorgias Plato seems to be concerned idea, an expression of purely private vir- only with the individual self, but even tue. Yet frugality in today’s world is an there we ½nd a concern for the larger ecological imperative. If the rest of the society. Socrates admonishes Callicles world, or even just China and India, not to become a kind of pirate, engaging were to share the number of automo- in limitless evil in order to get what he biles per capita in the United States, we wants at any price. Such a person, Soc- would quite literally be cooked. But can rates says, is friend to neither man nor we ask the rest of the world to be frugal god: “For he is unable to share in any in the use of fossil fuel while we go on community, and where there is no shar- with our wasteful ways? Today, frugal- ing there is no friendship. Callicles, wise ity is not an option, it is a necessity, and men say that heaven and earth and men only shortsightedness makes us deny it. and gods are bound together by commu- Similarly, global equality, not in an nity and friendship, by orderliness and absolute sense, but with signi½cant re- temperance and justice, and for this rea- ductions of present disparities, is equal- son they call the universe kosmos, world- ly necessary. While writing this essay I order, not disorder nor dissoluteness.”10 got a form letter from Jimmy Carter at For Plato, the concern for society the Carter Center. It began: “It is a chal- moves to a concern for the world as a lenge you and I dare not ignore. I am whole, for the divine as well as the hu- talking about the growing global chasm man. Plato’s most ambitious works, The between the rich and the poor. To me, a Republic and The Laws, are designs for a truly rich person is someone who has a good society, one in tune with the har- decent home and education, a chance for mony of the cosmos, designs that are a job, reasonable access to health care, problematic to us to be sure, and not and the opportunity to live a secure life.” ones we would want literally to imple- He points out how far most of the ment, though some scholars today be- world is from those minimal conditions lieve they were intended to stimulate for a decent life and how it is our obli- reform of democracy, not abolish it. gation to do something about it. To me, But Plato was surely right that a good Jimmy Carter is one of the few Ameri- self and a good society entail each other, cans who understands what it is to be a and in the age of globalization we must citizen in a democracy as Montesquieu understood it. So listening to Jimmy 10 Gorgias, 507E–508A, trans. Kahn, Plato and Carter and reading his recent book, Our The Socratic Dialogue, 143. Endangered Values, may be a good place

68 Dædalus Fall 2007 to start if we want to build an alternative Ethical politics: ideology with some chance of getting us reality or out of the mess we are in.11 I am not say- illusion? ing Carter has all the answers–no one does. But he knows that looking at the self and looking at the world are two sides of the same thing. And that is perhaps the best place to start if we are to reform the corrupt democracy in which we live, and make our democracy a responsible citizen in a dangerously de- moralized world.

11 Jimmy Carter, Our Endangered Values: Ameri- ca’s Moral Crisis (New York: Simon and Schus- ter, 2005).

Dædalus Fall 2007 69 Amy Gutmann

The lure & dangers of extremist rhetoric

In a democracy, controversy is healthy.1 course that pollutes our politics and cul- Complex issues as far-ranging as immi- ture, and the diminished capacity of gration, health care, military interven- America’s political system to address in- tions, taxation, and education seldom telligently, let alone solve, our most chal- lend themselves to simple, consensual lenging problems–from health care to solutions. The public interest is well global warming, from public education served by robust public argument. But to Social Security, from terrorism to this when disagreements are so driven and country’s eroding competitive advantage distorted by extremist rhetoric that cit- in the global economy. izens and public of½cials fail to engage To help us understand the nature of with one another reasonably or respect- this link between extremist rhetoric fully on substantive issues of public im- and political paralysis, let us begin with portance, the debate degenerates, block- an example of extremist rhetoric in en- ing constructive compromises that tertainment, where it is even more com- would bene½t all sides more than the mon and far less controversial than in status quo would. Like many scholars, politics. Many Americans over the age American citizens today discern a link of forty may remember the weekly between the impoverished, divisive dis- “Point/Counterpoint” segment from 60 Minutes, which pitted the liberal Sha- na Alexander against the conservative Amy Gutmann, a Fellow of the American Acad- James J. Kilpatrick. Even more will re- emy since 1997, is president of the University of call the spoof of “Point/Counterpoint” Pennsylvania. She is also a professor of politi- from Saturday Night Live, where Dan Ack- cal science in the School of Arts and Sciences. royd resorted to a show of verbal pyro- Among her numerous publications are “Democ- racy and Disagreement” (with Dennis Thomp- 1 This essay is adapted from lectures delivered son, 1996), “Color Conscious” (with K. Antho- at the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford Uni- ny Appiah, 1998), “Democratic Education” versity, Brown University, the University of Illi- (1999, revised edition), “Identity in Democracy” nois at Chicago, and the Woodrow Wilson In- ternational Center for Scholars. I thank those (2003), and “Why Deliberative Democracy?” audiences along with Sigal Ben-Porath, Sam (with Dennis Thompson, 2004). Freeman, Jim Gardner, Rob Reich, Steve Stein- berg, and Dennis Thompson for their excellent © 2007 by Amy Gutmann advice.

70 Dædalus Fall 2007 technics as he drove a single point to the gle-minded certainty by true believers in The lure & dangers of ground, while effacing Jane Curtin as an their extremist ideology. Extreme rhet- extremist “ignorant slut.” oric often is hard to distinguish from ex- rhetoric Jane and Dan were clearly not out ei- tremist rhetoric because it takes its lan- ther to advance the public interest or guage out of the same rhetorical play- to respect one another. Nor should they book, but those who speak the words do have been. SNL is, as they say, entertain- not subscribe to an extremist ideology.2 ment. And when extremist rhetoric is in- Why, then, do nonextremists go to tentionally outlandish, it makes for great rhetorical extremes and sound like true entertainment. But when it is politically believers? Because they can gain at least for real, extremist rhetoric has far less a short-term tactical advantage by benign effects on democratic discourse: sounding extreme. Outrageous, inflam- it demeans opponents, radically narrows matory remarks make for good copy, understanding of the issue at hand, and and it is often easier to speak in extreme closes off compromise. sound bites than in moderate ones. Pol- As we have seen all too vividly, ex- iticians can use extreme rhetoric in a cal- tremist rhetoric has become par for the culated way to capture the public’s at- course of democratic controversy in tention, to rally support of single-valued America. It dominates cable tv news. interest groups, and to mobilize voters. (Talk radio is even more extreme.) The For the sake of our discussion, let us public issues discussed are complex group extreme and extremist rhetoric and important, but little light is shed together under the label of extremist on them. The entertainment is that of rhetoric, and consider the three most a wrestling match, with far less demon- salient questions about extremist rhet- strable skill. oric in democratic controversy. First: Serious extremist rhetoric has two de- what makes it alluring at all? Second: ½ning features. First, it tends toward sin- how can it imperil democratic discourse gle-mindedness on any given issue. Sec- in spite of the constitutional protections ond, it passionately expresses certainty of free speech to which it is entitled? about the supremacy of its perspective Third: is there any potentially effective on the issue without submitting itself ei- way of responding to the prevalence of ther to a reasonable test of truth or to a extremist rhetoric in our political culture reasoned public debate. other than trying to beat one kind of ex- Extremist rhetoric, of course, admits tremism with another? of degrees. Imposing single-minded certainty on just one complex issue is ex- What is the lure of extremist rhetoric tremist, but not as much as being single- in democratic controversy? After all, minded on every issue. Likewise, the most citizens are not extremists. Part of certainty with which one argues a point the lure lies in the fact that it is easier to may be more or less impervious to evi- believe passionately in a value or cause dence and argument. Extremist rhetoric without regard to subtlety, reasoned ar- also comes in many secular and religious gument, probabilistic evidence, and vig- varieties. orously tested scienti½c theory or fact. If we are discerning in our analysis, we Expressions of single-minded visions for can also distinguish extremist rhetoric from merely extreme rhetoric. Extremist 2 I thank Ambassador Robert M. Beecroft for rhetoric refers to the expression of sin- helping me clarify this point.

Dædalus Fall 2007 71 Amy solving problems and changing society passions of disrespect and degradation Gutmann on can make complexity and uncertainty, of argumentative adversaries. Extrem- the public frustration and regret, all appear to evap- ist rhetoric insidiously undermines the interest orate. Another part of the lure is that democratic promise of mobilizing citi- having comrades-in-argument is com- zens on the basis of some reasonable forting. understanding of their interest and the If extremist rhetoric has popular ap- public interest. peal, at least on its face, what could be Extreme rhetoric has the same effect wrong with the overwhelming preva- as extremist rhetoric because it express- lence of extremist rhetoric in democrat- es itself in the same way. It is extreme ic discourse? After all, extremists have a simply for the sake of gaining attention constitutional right to speak in extremist and mobilizing the base. While we may language as long as they are not directly not worry that extreme rhetoric reflects threatening other people. Our answer a dangerous underlying ideology, we to the question of what is wrong with should be concerned that it is unneces- extremist rhetoric is essential to under- sarily disrespectful of argumentative standing both why its prevalence endan- adversaries. gers the public interest that democracy Unlike extremist rhetoric, extreme should serve, and why so many demo- rhetoric is almost always either decep- cratic citizens, even many initially drawn tive or worse: It blatantly disregards and to some forms of extremist rhetoric, ½nd devalues truth-seeking understandings it increasingly troubling over time. upon which citizens in a democracy may Going as far back in political philoso- make informed judgments. It also un- phy as Aristotle, political rhetoric has dermines a basic value of representative been employed in the service of reason- politics. When politicians use extreme able persuasion concerning questions rhetoric to mobilize their base in cava- of justice or the public good. Aristotle lier disregard of the vast majority, they maintained that the “proper task” of strip the moderate middle of a voice in rhetoric is to drive home the logic, the governance. truth, and the evidence of an argument. The problem for representative de- Reason should frame a good politician’s mocracy, therefore, is that many people goal to persuade. The opposite of a who are not ideological zealots manipu- sound democratic argument is dema- latively use extreme rhetoric for their gogy: manipulation and deception in own mutually disrespectful political order to divide and conquer the demo- ends–at the same time as zealots of all cratic populace. Extremist rhetoric is a ideological stripes insidiously subvert common tactic of demagogy: it divides the compromising spirit of democracy in order to conquer. through their use of extremist rhetoric. Mobilizing one’s base and arousing Since so much of representative democ- people’s passions are natural parts of racy depends on politicians’ wooing the democratic politics. Aristotle recognized votes and support of citizens to govern that rhetoric at its best appeals concomi- in our names, what politicians say mat- tantly to our passions as well as to our ters mightily. character and our reason. The problem with extremist rhetoric is that it mobi- Examples of polarizing political rheto- lizes the base by spurning reason and ric abound in American history, which playing exclusively to the antagonistic is not to say that America ever enjoyed

72 Dædalus Fall 2007 a ‘golden age’ devoid of extremist rhet- ny . . . and I say . . . segregation today . . . The lure & 3 dangers of oric. segregation tomorrow . . . segregation extremist At the 1992 Republican National forever.”5 rhetoric Convention, for example, Pat Buchanan In the hypercharged climate of post- launched a tirade against advocates of 9/11 American politics, extremist po- abortion rights, women’s rights, gay litical rhetoric has grown vituperative. rights, and the separation of church and President George W. Bush and his ad- state: “My friends . . . there is a religious ministration have frequently been com- war going on in our country for the soul pared to Hitler and the Nazis. One of of America. It is a cultural war, as critical the most infamous examples is a televi- to the kind of nation we will one day be sion ad produced by MoveOn.org that as was the cold war itself.”4 The very aired during the 2004 campaign. The description of the disagreement on pub- ad begins with images of Hitler and lic policy as ‘war’ pushes not only ex- German military might during World tremists but also moderates into more War II and recordings of Hitler speak- extremist positions, and undermines ing. At the end of the ad, a photo of the opportunity for reasoned argument Bush raising his hand to take the oath and respectful compromise. of of½ce appears, accompanied by the This troubling tendency to polarize is following statement: “A nation warped by no means reserved for the Right or by lies. Lies fuel fear. Fear fuels aggres- the Republican Party. Many prominent sion. Invasion. Occupation. What were Southern Democrats unleashed virulent war crimes in 1945 is foreign policy in strains of extremist rhetoric to whip up 2003.” the resistance against civil rights for On the right, some elected of½cials American blacks. During his inaugural have all but explicitly equated both op- address in January 1963, Alabama Gover- position to the Iraq War and criticism nor George Wallace portrayed his state of President Bush’s foreign policy with as “this Cradle of the Confederacy, this treason. Following the Supreme Court very Heart of the Great Anglo-Saxon ruling that rejected the Bush administra- Southland,” and declared, “In the name tion’s argument that it could establish of the greatest people that have ever trod military tribunals without Congression- this earth, I draw the line in the dust and al authority, then–House Republican toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyran- Majority Leader John Boehner said, “I wonder if [the Democrats] are more in- 3 For colorful and well-documented accounts terested in protecting the terrorists than of the (½guratively and often literally) bruising protecting the American people.” Dur- political battles during the early years of the ing a House debate on the war in Iraq, American republic, see Richard N. Rosenfeld, Republican Congresswoman Jean American Aurora: A Democratic-Republican Re- turns: The Suppressed History of Our Nation’s Be- Schmidt relayed this message from an ginnings and the Heroic Newspaper That Tried to Ohio State Representative to Democrat- Report It (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997); ic Representative Jack Murtha, a Marine and Jeffrey L. Pasley, “The Tyranny of Printers”: Corps veteran and a leading advocate for Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic troop redeployment: “Cowards cut and (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, run, Marines never do.” 2001).

4 Pat Buchanan, address to the Republican Na- 5 George C. Wallace, inaugural address, Janu- tional Convention, August 17, 1992. ary 14, 1963.

Dædalus Fall 2007 73 Amy Extremist rhetoric is hardly the ex- essarily bad for democracy. Indeed, Gutmann on clusive domain of party politics. Here some perilous times may need a heal- the public is a recent example of extremist politi- thy dose of extremist rhetoric. For ex- interest cal rhetoric from outside the domain ample, we rightly applaud those who, of professional politics: “This is Jihad, when confronting slavery in antebellum pal. There are no innocent bystanders, America, called for its abolition with because in these desperate hours, by- certainty and single-mindedness and standers are not innocent. We’ll broad- defended liberty as the supreme value. en our theater of conflict.”6 These re- Yet we also must remember that pas- marks could have come straight out of sionate certainty in the service of a the mouths of the Islamic terrorists supremely just cause is not enough in who murdered Daniel Pearl. In fact, this politics. In Team of Rivals: The Political speaker, Mike Roselle, is an environ- Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns mental extremist. His rhetoric calls for Goodwin recounts how Secretary of war on the ‘guilty’–the unconverted– State William Seward, because of his in the name of the supreme value of en- early hard-line rhetoric, surrendered vironmental preservation. the ability that Abraham Lincoln maintained, by virtue of his own more tem- Extreme and extremist rhetoric tends pered rhetoric, to unite a coalition to to divide, demean, and deceive demo- stop the spread of slavery and ultimate- cratic citizens. To put it metaphorically ly to defeat it.7 but not inaccurately: Such rhetoric is Even in a supremely good cause– junk food for the body politic. It clogs which the abolition of slavery certainly two major arteries that nourish constitu- was–extremist rhetoric tends to appeal tional democracy and the inevitably im- to an already convinced base. It excludes perfect but all the more important drive all those who might join a more moder- to serve the public on salient issues: mu- ate and more winning political coalition. tual respect and morally defensible com- When many people’s lives and liberties promise across differences. are at stake, being right is not enough. The increasing prevalence of extremist Being politically effective is morally es- rhetoric poses not only a moral dilemma sential as well. but also a great practical puzzle for mod- When Arizona Senator Barry Gold- erates because most extremist rhetoric water prepared to accept the Republi- does not pose a ‘clear and present dan- can nomination for president in 1964, ger’ to our democracy. In addition to be- he became the target of widespread ating entertaining to many, extremist rhet- tacks from moderate Republicans, who oric does not directly threaten anyone’s charged that his views were dangerously life, property, or well-being. Its enter- extreme. Goldwater directly confronted tainment value therefore can easily lull these attacks in his famous acceptance us into neglecting and even ignoring its speech at the Republican National Con- dangers. vention. “I would remind you,” he said, And, as I indicated at the outset, not “that extremism in the defense of liber- all extreme or extremist rhetoric is nec- ty is no vice. And let me remind you also

7 Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The 6 Mike Roselle in Earth First! Journal (Decem- Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: ber 1994/January 1995). Simon & Schuster, 2005), 14–15.

74 Dædalus Fall 2007 that moderation in the pursuit of justice lying point for nonextremists who want The lure & 8 dangers of is no virtue.” to make a public difference. extremist Goldwater’s is one of the most power- To sum up the signi½cant dangers that rhetoric ful defenses of extremist rhetoric–and extremist rhetoric today poses to a con- action–in the annals of American poli- stitutional democracy: tics. He was right that extremist rhetoric • in a good but single-valued cause–such It shuts out consideration of compet- as liberty–can be a great virtue, depending values that are basic to constitu- ing on the context and its capacity to tional democracy. Neither liberty with- mobilize a majority toward advancing out security and opportunity, nor secu- the public interest. But Goldwater failed rity and opportunity without liberty is to acknowledge that extremist rhetoric a tenable option. even in a good cause can be dangerous. • It shuts down constructive conversa- Why are Americans rightly wary of tions that offer relevant evidence and extremist rhetoric even in a good cause? argument that can improve public de- First, by its very nature, extremist rheto- cisions. ric excludes from consideration other important public values. Liberty is not • It denigrates and degrades rather than the only important value for American respects those who beg to differ. Abor- democracy. Education, health care, and tion-rights proponents become ‘baby opportunity, for example, also matter, killers.’ Anti-abortion advocates are and indeed are essential for the well-be- ‘religious wing nuts.’ ing of a majority of Americans. • It even discounts the intelligence of A second concern about extremist the followers of rhetorical excesses. rhetoric, even in a good cause, is that Callers to Rush Limbaugh’s talk radio it condemns without further considera- show are known as ‘Dittoheads’ be- tion those who dare to disagree. No sin- cause they form an amen chorus to gle value, not even liberty, can safely Limbaugh’s extremist rhetoric. claim to be a ‘total solution’ to the problems afflicting humankind; therefore, Another problem with extremist rhet- those who disagree should not be dis- oric from the democratic perspective of missed out of hand–and denied the re- pursuing the public interest arises from spect that their views deserve–simply the psychological frailty called hubris. by the rhetoric employed in a worthy Even granting that some extremists are cause. right, we still must recognize that the The defense of justice, however, is far vast majority of people who seek public more resistant to extremist rhetoric, be- power and influence are all too prone to cause justice is a consummately inclu- believe without warrant–yet with sub- sive moral value in democratic politics. jective certainty–that they have the ab- It internally admits other public values solute right on their side. They therefore under its rubric, including liberty, secu- indefensibly denigrate and dismiss the rity, equal opportunity, and mutual re- many reasonable and respectable people spect among persons. The passionate who disagree with them. They also block defense of justice therefore can be a ral- constructive examination of their own values and beliefs. The aftermath of the 8 Barry Goldwater, acceptance speech at the U. S. intervention in Iraq painfully illus- Republican National Convention, July 16, 1964. trates the problems attending a politics

Dædalus Fall 2007 75 Amy in which public of½cials and their sup- Scientism expresses an equal and oppo- Gutmann on porters fail to take the facts into account, site certainty, which also de½es reason, the public and also refuse to consider more than that all human understanding derives interest one side of the argument. from the comprehensive rational value of scienti½c inquiry. It treats religion– Appreciating the dangers of extremist and religious believers–with open con- rhetoric leads us to the third and ½nal tempt. Richard Dawkins, for example, question: what is our most reasonable proclaims that “faith is one of the remedy for upholding the pluralistic val- world’s great evils.”10 Sam Harris and ues of constitutional democracy? The Christopher Hitchens indict all organ- most enduring remedy is closely related ized religions for inciting hatred and to the fact that a majority of democratic abetting humanity’s propensity for cru- citizens are not themselves extremists. elty and murder. With single-minded The most reliable surveys and scholarly fury, all three drive democratic discourse studies consistently ½nd a far more plu- deeper into the cycle of mutual disre- ralistic and open-minded electorate than spect and denigration. Trading one kind the public catered to by extremist rheto- of extremism in for another–creation- ric on cable tv and talk radio and among ism for scientism–does not bode well many political elites.9 for an informed public policy. The remedy must help us counter Worse than rhetorical rage are ex- what can best be called rhetorical rage: treme political responses to extremist the phenomenon of one form of extrem- rhetoric. The French parliament, for ist rhetoric breeding another, counter- example, adopted a bill in 2006 making extremist rhetoric. Here is an example it a crime to deny that Armenians suf- that illustrates how far rhetorical rage fered genocide at the hands of the Turks. has spread–in this case, to scientists– This is an extreme reaction to extrem- in a country whose citizens are over- ism. whelmingly moderate and reasonable. Democracy’s most reasonable hope Creationism is often communicated in for countering demagogy is the demo- extremist terms, as part of a comprehen- cratic lure of morally engaged pluralism. sive divine plan, and as such is impervi- The vast majority of American citizens ous to the mountain of evidence that re- realize that they have multiple interests, futes its claims to being a scienti½c theo- ideals, and preferences. And they are ry that disproves the theory of evolu- more satis½ed when democratic politics tion. attends to those interests, ideals, and Recently, in response to creationism, preferences. an opposite form of extremism–which How can American democracy take calls itself science but really is scientism better advantage of the lure of morally –has emerged and gained a following. engaged pluralism? Well-educated citizens can practice what Dennis Thomp- son and I describe as “an economy of 9 Morris Fiorina, Culture War? The Myth of a moral disagreement.” When we argue Polarized America (New York: Pearson Long- about controversial issues, we should man, 2005); Alan Wolf, One Nation After All: defend our views vigorously while ex- What Middle-Class Americans Really Think About God, Country, and Family, Racism, Welfare, Immi- gration, Homosexuality, Work, The Right, The Left, 10 Richard Dawkins, “Is Science a Religion?” and Each Other (New York: Viking, 1998). Humanist 57 (January/February 1997).

76 Dædalus Fall 2007 pressing mutual respect for our adver- moral stakes in pursuing the public in- The lure & dangers of saries. We can do this by not preemp- terest could not be higher; life, liberty, extremist tively rejecting everything for which opportunity, and mutual respect are the rhetoric our political adversaries stand.11 Take lifeblood of a flourishing democracy. For the controversy over creationism. I can morally engaged pluralists to be effec- staunchly defend evolution against cre- tive, we must be passionate as well as ationism as a scienti½c theory while also reasonable in our rhetoric. Passion sup- recognizing that science does not have ported by reason elevates democratic answers to most of the great cosmologi- debate while also making it more allur- cal questions that religion addresses. ing and effective. Nothing will thereby be lost, and much In searching for antidotes to extrem- will be gained. Practicing “an economy ism, there is therefore no substitute for of moral disagreement” engenders mu- a better democratic education in robust, tual respect across competing view- reasoned, and respectful political con- points and, as important, makes room troversy and debate. We need to teach for moral compromise. No democracy students how to engage with one anoth- can function–let alone flourish–with- er over controversial issues. Students out moral compromise over reasonable must ½rst learn how to recognize dema- differences. gogic rhetoric and then how to counter Can morally engaged pluralism be an it, both individually and institutionally. effective rhetorical strategy? The rea- Well-designed democratic institutions sonable hope lies in the fact that most can dramatically reduce the toxic effects democratic citizens are not extremists. of extremist rhetoric. We need to sup- And respecting multiple points of view port institutional structures whose in- carries more lasting and long-term ben- centives encourage respectful controver- e½ts in democratic politics than playing sy. Less partisan gerrymandering would exclusively to a narrow political base. foster more representative democratic However, morally engaged pluralists rhetoric. Well-structured debates and must not check all emotions at the door. factcheck.org blogs can expose extremist “Rationality is a bond between persons,” and extreme rhetoric that is deceptive the philosopher Stuart Hampshire ob- and subversive of the democratic pursuit served, “but it is not a very powerful of the public interest. bond, and it is apt to fail as a bond when Democratic citizens should not wait there are strong passions on two sides of for the media and our political leaders a conflict.”12 Rationality alone is apt to to reform themselves. All pluralists–the fail as a bond, but morally engaged plu- vast majority of democratic citizens– ralists have every reason to be passionate can play an important part today in criti- as well as rational in their rhetoric. The cizing extreme and extremist rhetoric and in defending a more democratic, less 11 See Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, demagogic rhetoric of morally engaged Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge, Mass.: pluralism. We can do so both reasonab- Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, ly and passionately in keeping with our 1996); and Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thomp- character as morally engaged pluralists. son, Why Deliberative Democracy? (Princeton, This never-ending pursuit of the pub- N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004). lic interest in a democracy is not a value- 12 Stuart Hampshire, Justice is Conflict (Prince- neutral enterprise. Pluralist citizens are ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 94. committed to upholding the spirit of

Dædalus Fall 2007 77 Amy constitutional democracy beyond what Gutmann on the letter of the law requires us to do. the public We must recognize that demonizing and interest demeaning our opponents to mobilize like-minded people in democratic politics is a legal but nonetheless demagogic way of driving constitutional democracy into the ground. Democracy’s saving grace is that most citizens are put off by demagogues and their techniques. By recognizing that the person with whom we disagree, far from being an “ignorant slut,” typically has a valid point worth considering, we can work together as fellow citizens who re- spectfully disagree with one another to give our great constitutional democracy a longer lease on life.

78 Dædalus Fall 2007 Lance Taylor

The flavors of economics & the public interest

Two hundred years ago, the ancestor nomics does not consider collective ac- of today’s economics was called politi- tors at all. Rather, like the chorus in a cal economy: it was political in that it Greek play, it incessantly chants that had a strong connection with political the economic system is populated by philosophy and a focus on public policy. highly competitive ‘agents’ with good Nowadays, political economy is called information, who strive to maximize classical economics. It was succeeded their own well-being (pro½ts for ½rms late in the nineteenth century by a neo- and consumption ‘utility’ for house- classical revision that itself diverged in- holds) within an observed price system. to contending schools, but still controls These choices lead to a welfare level as the policy debate, especially in the Unit- high as it possibly can be for each pared States. ticipant. Shorthand labels for this lev- This genealogy is useful because the el are Walrasian equilibrium, named different flavors of economics incorpo- after a late-nineteenth-century French rate distinct attitudes about the public economist, Leon Walras, and Pareto interest. How the state interacts with optimum, after Vilfredo Pareto a bit collective actors is central to the distinc- thereafter. When the equilibrium is per- tion. On the surface, mainstream eco- turbed, prices rapidly adjust to signal how resources should be reallocated to Lance Taylor is Arnhold Professor of Internation- ensure that they are fully employed– al Cooperation and Development at the New with the proviso that the only way that School for Social Research. He is also the direc- one actor could gain additional income tor of the Center for Economic Policy Analysis. would be for another to lose. Among his numerous publications are “Income However, policy practitioners may Distribution, Inflation, and Growth” (1991), group agents into wage-earners, pro½t “The Market Meets Its Match: Restructuring recipients, the government, etc. So to the Economies of Eastern Europe” (1994), and speak, collective actors enter via the “Reconstructing Macroeconomics: Structuralist back door. Moreover, even the agents Proposals and Critiques of the Mainstream” in the play may have a hard time behav- (2004). ing as the chorus thinks they should– an insight often credited to Alfred Mar- © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts shall, another nineteenth-century & Sciences founding economist–because economic

Dædalus Fall 2007 79 Lance information is, in practice, not fully re- talists, landlords, and peasants. In Taylor on flected in prices: ‘Distortions’ such as the twentieth century, John Maynard the public taxes and tariffs (almost always blamed Keynes took this approach, directing interest on government intervention) lead deci- his wrath against bear speculators and sions astray. Monopoly positions exist high-saving rentiers, who could slow that, further supported by increasing economic growth by seizing up the ½- returns to scale (or decreasing costs nancial system. per unit of production), can deform the In this alternative account, relation- price system. All these forces push the ships among collective actors help deter- economy away from a Pareto optimum. mine relative prices and income distri- Mainstream economists and pundits bution, and influence technical progress thus vacillate between the view of the and supply. Smith and his successors chorus and the travails that the agents were clearly aware of the importance of confront. Most–notably those in a po- technological advance–routinely mea- sition to influence policy–continue to sured by increases in the average produc- take the perspective of the chorus while tivity of labor–often stemming from de- seeking to expunge whatever distortions creasing costs, as in the famous pin fac- may exist. Advocates of liberalizing in- tory. Such scale economies are much ternational trade belong to this group. more easily realized in some sectors of Others construct mathematical models production–notably but not exclusively about the manifold optimization prob- industry–than in others. Classical econ- lems that economic actors in daily life omists saw economic development as are supposed to resolve. A main theme the expansion of sectors with increasing of their work is how asymmetric infor- returns (web search is the most striking mation between agents can force the sys- recent example) while sectors with more tem away from a Pareto position. State mature technologies gave way. intervention may at times improve the On the other side of markets are fac- situation. More recent empirical work tors that determine the level of effective on topics like minimum wages and pov- demand. For Keynes, among these were erty has drifted away from mathema- the “animal spirits” of investing ½rms, tized behavioral models, but remains but they also include the upswings and informed by the narrow neoclassical downswings of household spending. worldview. To paraphrase Clifford These factors also influence the pace of Geertz, ‘thin description’ is the order growth in productivity. The economy’s of the day. position depends on these interacting In contrast to the mainstream picture supply and demand systems. of the economy is the classical (or more Prior to Marx with his reserve armies generally, ‘structuralist’) perspective, (and in line with the present-day main- which has roots in politics and sociolo- stream), the classical economists as- gy. The economists Adam Smith, Da- sumed that forces on the supply side vid Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, and Karl would determine overall output and em- Marx adopted this view. Rather than ployment, in part as an empirical gener- focusing on either the price-mediated alization from the fact that in a poor functions of the whole system or the economy lacking a differentiated struc- behavior of individual agents, they high- ture of production an employable work- lighted the dealings of collective actors– er will not long survive without holding organized groups or classes such as capi- some kind of job. This postulate of full

80 Dædalus Fall 2007 employment was named Say’s Law after n adage from Lao Tzu sums up the The flavors A of econom- Jean-Baptiste Say, a French contempo- contradictory aspects of aid: “Give a ics & the rary of Ricardo’s. The law is enforced man a ½sh and you feed him for a day. public in a general way over long periods of Teach him how to ½sh and you feed him interest time–unemployment does not rise infor a lifetime.” The true purpose of aid de½nitely. But over decades it certainly is presumably to help a man (or a na- can: witness Western Europe over many tional economy) sustain himself (or it- years stretching into the twenty-½rst self ). For successful ‘½shing,’ the econ- century. omy should maintain 2 percent annual Contemporary structuralists also em- per-capita output growth, and employ- phasize how accounting balances among ment creation should keep pace with economic actors–essentially, what is population growth. This combination bought must be sold and what is bor- can make a big dent in poverty by in- rowed must be lent–play a crucial role creasing average income by 22 percent in determining how supply and demand over ten years and by 49 percent over forces interact. Keynes’s basic insight twenty. that often (though not always) the level Foreign aid has certainly helped of effective demand determines aggre- launch 2 percent or faster per-capita gate supply emerges from such macro- growth in diverse policy environments. economic accounting restrictions. His In many cases, limited availability of rejection of Say’s Law hinged on the ob- hard currency is the crucial bottleneck servation that in an economy with a in a developing economy, holding down complex ½nancial system there can be both supply and demand. If effective de- a long and variable period between the mand can increase because foreign ex- sale of one commodity and the use of the change is available to pay for the associ- proceeds to buy another. Supply need ated imports, it can stimulate private- not create its own demand, but rather sector investment and innovation. At adjusts to the demand that is out there. the same time, the imports can bring in Finally, underlying both demand and essential goods and technologies to raise supply are shifting ½nancial decisions by productive capacity. collective actors such as bull real-estate The ½rst, most successful aid efforts and stock-market speculators and bear were the post–World War II Marshall hedge funds. The Asian crisis of 1997 was Plan in Europe and the parallel recon- a replay of many prior episodes in which struction program in Japan. They em- ½nancial turbulence derailed the produc- phasized breaking foreign-exchange bot- tive side of the economy. tlenecks via coordinated public and pri- So how do the different schools try to vate interventions, as opposed to market enhance the public interest through eco- liberalization. It is worth recalling that nomic policy? The differences in their the Americans who helped implement attitudes toward the public interest are reconstruction were New Dealers at ease apparent in the contexts of foreign aid with an interventionist state. as well as recent patterns of growth and In the 1960s and 1970s illiberal and bu- income distribution in the United States. reaucratically planned South Korea uti- Let us turn ½rst to the arena of foreign lized capital inflows and American-guar- aid, and development policy more gen- anteed market access to create a formi- erally, for examples that are certainly at dable industrial base, beginning with the forefront of international debate. textiles. It then built the world’s biggest

Dædalus Fall 2007 81 Lance integrated steel plant, eventually mov- In this situation, more foreign re- Taylor on ing on to chip manufacture, automo- sources can help raise industry produc- the public biles, and broadband Internet coverage tivity, so real incomes can rise, and ease interest for over 90 percent of the country. South the demand constraint economy-wide, Korea’s international economic situa- and people can be employed. Ultimately, tion was a consequence of cold-war poli- exports and private capital can provide tics, but its planners took full advantage hard currency, as in Asia now, but aid of the opportunities they had. can help get the growth process started. In the 1980s, Chile sidestepped the rest In all these countries, a combination of Latin America’s ‘lost decade’ because of technocratic top-down policy and it received ample foreign assistance from spontaneous innovation from the bot- international aid agencies favoring its tom up created landmark shifts in eco- neoliberal policy stance. Increasingly nomic structure. Even in neoliberal Chi- sophisticated raw-material exports sup- le, the government consistently support- ported its economic expansion. Several ed expansion of mineral and agricultur- economies in sub-Saharan Africa also al exports. Unfortunately, neoclassical now have respectable growth rates, be- arguments to the contrary are highly in- cause of Nordic and other donors who fluential today, even though they were have provided steady aid over decades completely ignored at the time of the for their own geopolitical reasons. Marshall Plan or South Korea’s growth Two-percent overall growth has sever- spurt. A widely held idea in economics al implications. First, it requires even now–½rst clearly stated by the found- higher growth rates in labor productivity ing neoclassical Austrian school from in the leading sector(s), which in many Vienna in the 1870s–asserts that rapid poor economies is agriculture. Despite growth can only emerge from private its adverse effects on income distribu- entrepreneurship with clear property- tion, the aid-fueled Green Revolution rights protections. (William Easterly is successfully increased both land and la- a recent epigone). bor productivity. In time, though, with History belies the proposition. Besides real income growth, agriculture’s shares the cases of the now-industrialized econ- in gdp and employment inevitably de- omies and twentieth-century success cline. cases that we have already seen, in which At higher income levels, the lead sec- the state proactively intervened in devel- tor(s) must offer increasing returns and opment, consider the United States in opportunities for robust output growth the nineteenth century. Agricultural ex- in response to demand. A clear pattern ports prevented a foreign-exchange bot- of structural change emerges from the tleneck. Enormous public subsidies data for economies–today mostly in (with enormous corruption) supported East and South Asia–that sustain rapid investment in infrastructure, and the growth. As in South Korea, industry al- highest tariffs in the world protected in- most always serves as the engine for pro- dustry. Entrepreneurs–from Rockefel- ductivity growth, though not job crea- ler to the robber barons–abounded, but tion. For a sector or the entire economy paid scant heed to conventional property to generate employment, its per-capita rights. growth rate of demand has to exceed its In less strident versions, the Austrian productivity growth. Net job creation argument dominates much current dis- usually takes place in services. cussion of aid and development policy,

82 Dædalus Fall 2007 especially among major donors. The fa- (mdg), a humanitarian aid program The flavors of econom- mous ‘Washington consensus,’ now emphasizing technological tricks to ics & the seemingly entering remission, strongly bring quick results, range upward from public emphasized private-sector initiatives $150 billion per year. Current aid flows, interest and strict limits on state guidance of the including debt relief, are on the order economy. In an argument dating back of $100 billion in principle. In practice, to Ricardo and built solidly into neoclas- the transfer is far less. The Internation- sical theory, elimination of barriers to al Monetary Fund (imf) is not allowing trade was supposed to generate big gains governments to channel forgiven debt in economic ef½ciency. Thanks to Say’s toward increased spending on poverty Law, workers and enterprises displaced reduction because of its phobic fear (not by the removal of protection would be supported by any evidence) that a mod- reemployed in other activities without est increase in ½scal outlays will kick off signi½cant hitches. uncontrollable inflation. But over the past two or three decades, Even if aid mounted, the imf relented, many aid packages and economic ‘re- and humanitarian goals were realized, form’ programs informed by the con- the mdg effort can only be successful if sensus did not generate linkages among it puts economies on paths of sustained demand growth, productivity, and em- growth. In the past aid has sometimes ployment. Per-capita income levels did set off growth, but more often it has not. not rise, and workers displaced by trade There are many challenges to overcome: liberalization vanished into informal At the micro level, augmenting human and subsistence activities. Foreign aid capital by itself will not support steady became at best a dole, and at worst a growth unless highly productive enter- cesspool for corruption. prises get started. Entrepreneurship is Certainly, doles can have positive im- essential to this end, and should be re- pacts at the micro level if one can avoid warded. But that will not happen spon- problems ranging from an established, taneously in a liberalized market envi- exploitative class structure to Marshal- ronment. The state has to play a strong lian distortions and information asym- supportive role. metries. A handout from abroad may Unfortunately, Washington consensus cure smallpox or alleviate childhood packages currently bind the hands of malnutrition–but it is a handout not- governments in developing countries. withstanding. In recent decades many To direct their limited resources toward poor countries have seen marked im- productive ends, these governments provements in primary education and must have the available ‘policy space’ to health care, but their economies have use instruments like sensible tariffs and not been able to grow. Even if they suc- trade quotas, targeted credit, and pro- ceed on their own terms, people-orient- duction subsidies. Scale economies are ed technical ½xes at the household level potentially available in many lines of en- –advocated by individuals such as Bill deavor–the task is to identify and sup- Gates and Jeffrey Sachs–do not directly port them. Linking fetters on develop- stimulate economy-wide expansion and ment policies to disbursements of aid enduring poverty alleviation. –standard practice for the World Bank Foreign assistance is bound to be avail- and imf–is completely counterproduc- able in limited quantities. Cost estimates tive. for the Millennium Development Goals

Dædalus Fall 2007 83 Lance n the United States, productivity The Hydro chief is presumably as Taylor I on growth and distributive conflict have competent as his counterparts at small- the public come to the fore. Although growth er American competitors, but they make interest since the recession of the early 1980s at least ten times what he does. His rela- has been relatively stable, the rates are tive penury is in part a consequence of unimpressive compared to the post– the Nordic socioeconomic model, which World War II golden age of market cap- has rested for decades on income equal- italism. More ominously, inequality has ization. People in egalitarian societies widened. Even with generous correc- are jealous of excess affluence and do tions for fringe bene½ts, index-number not tolerate its existence for long. Amer- biases, and the business cycle, real-wage icans have never been anywhere near as growth has not kept up with labor pro- egalitarian as the Nordics, but it is strik- ductivity. Across cycles, the wage share ing how their tolerance of opulence has of output (equal to the real wage divid- grown over the past two or three decades ed by productivity) has declined and the –with a substantial political push from pro½t share has risen. The wage gap be- the people at the top. tween skilled and unskilled workers has Macroeconomic forces also underlie grown, and a chasm has opened between shifts in distribution and growth. One median, mean, and even 99th percentile way to think about them is a ‘demand- wages and payments to top executives, led’ growth model proposed by the Cam- entertainment and sports stars, and ½- bridge structuralist Nicholas Kaldor in nanciers (who are in a higher income the 1960s. He observed that productivity bracket than even the top executives). growth appears to be stimulated by out- The standard neoclassical explana- put growth–an idea also raised by Ar- tion for these trends is that they are in- thur Okun on this side of the Atlantic evitable: the economy is at a Pareto opti- at about the same time. Going back to mum, which because of factors such as Marx and Ricardo–notably the latter’s globalization, increased use of informa- discussion of England’s Luddite mation technology, and ½nancial innova- chine-smashers early in the nineteenth tion has shifted in favor of the affluent. century–rising real wages may also in- But from a broader perspective, we must duce ½rms to seek technologies to save ask why such income concentration has on labor and production costs. been permitted to occur. Surely some- Unit labor costs are reflected in the thing in the nature of the social contract wage share, which is reduced by higher must have changed. productivity. Lower costs in turn can Take, for example, the ceo of Nor- stimulate aggregate demand by making way’s Norsk Hydro, a company dealing capital formation cheaper and national in oil and aluminum. There was public exports more competitive in the world outcry over his pay package this sum- market. Because the nonwage, or pro½t, mer. Because the center-left government share increases when productivity rises owns 44 percent of the company, the relative to real wages, we can say that Minister of Trade and Industry inter- demand (and output) growth is ‘pro½t- vened. The ceo ended up with a 10 per- led’ under such circumstances. If decent raise on a salary of roughly $1 mil- mand is ‘wage-led’ on the other hand, lion per year, but his accrued stock op- higher productivity can displace work- tions were trimmed to around $4 million ers and lead to jobless growth as the with no more to be granted in the future. Luddites feared. The United States and

84 Dædalus Fall 2007 countries with similar economies (e.g., seen whether wage increases will impose The flavors of econom- the United Kingdom and Japan) appear their familiar brake on demand expan- ics & the to be pro½t-led; wage-led may be the sion. Labor’s bargaining power has visi- public rule on the Continent. bly eroded over recent decades. interest If Kaldor’s (or more generally, A ½nal question is how wage- and Keynes’s) model applies, there is ample pro½t-led demands ½t into the broader room for demand-side policies to stimu- economic system. Along classical lines, late economic growth. Sensible expan- the Dutch economists Ro Naastepad sionary monetary and ½scal actions can and Servaas Storm point to a strong in- support demand and thereby stimulate stitutional complementarity among productivity growth through Kaldor- ‘Anglo-American’ uncoordinated indus- Okun effects. Fiscal de½cits may be a trial relations (“flexible labor markets”), consequence, but they need not lead to a stock market–based ½nancial system unacceptably high real rates of interest placing emphasis on short-term pro½t- and inflation. Productivity gains them- ability, and a pro½t-led demand regime. selves can help keep inflation in check. Similarly, a ‘Continental’ regulated la- If demand is suf½ciently pro½t-led, bor market, bank-based ½nancial sys- employment can rise as well. Labor- tem, and wage-led demand appear to market interventions such as minimum- be complementary. and living-wage programs can help Both institutional structures have maintain the labor share, providing a their advantages and disadvantages. In stabilizing influence against ‘excessive’ the period since Thatcher and Reagan, demand stimulation. Enhanced public political discourse and ½nancial report- investment may well ‘crowd in’ private- age especially have emphasized the capital formation, and help provide vi- adaptability of Anglo-American systems. tal infrastructure (contrast the United Slow, jobless growth is allegedly a Con- States’ broadband coverage at 50-plus tinental malaise. While such growth is percent with South Korea’s at 90-plus certainly a possibility in wage-led sys- percent). tems, well-designed policy can sidestep Demand-driven models explain other it, as in the Nordic countries with their aspects of the macroeconomy–for ex- relatively low unemployment and high ample, a cycle between demand and dis- growth rates of gdp, productivity, and tribution as proposed forty years ago by real wages. Richard Goodwin, an American econo- Beyond the cyclical short run, jobless mist-artist who found the universities growth is not even contemplated in of Cambridge and Siena more congenial the model both liberal and conservative than the ones in the United States. At policy economists utilize to analyze the the trough of an output cycle, productiv- United States. Variant versions formu- ity rises rapidly as the economy emerges lated eighty years ago by the Cambridge from recession, boosting the pro½t share polymath Frank Ramsey and thirty years and demand. Real wages rise (accompa- later by mit’s Robert Solow–elegant nied by inflation) with output as the la- renditions of the neoclassical Greek bor market tightens; cut into pro½ts; chorus–incorporate Say’s Law, along and reduce demand at the peak. But any with the corollary that the supply of sav- complex system changes its behavior ings exclusively determines investment over time. As of summer 2007, we are in or capital formation (simply ignoring a cyclical upswing, and it remains to be Keynes’s “animal spirits”). Savings in

Dædalus Fall 2007 85 Lance turn follow from the level of output, public-sector investment will crowd out Taylor on set by fully employed labor and capi- private capital formation. And if, as is the public tal along with a rate of productivity commonly assumed, private economic interest growth coming from “technological fac- decisions are ‘more ef½cient,’ Say’s Law tors” outside the macroeconomic sys- leaves scant room for public-capital for- tem. Forces of “productivity and thrift” mation–even for creating social goods thereby determine macro outcomes. such as human capital. This model has strong rami½cations, In a Walrasian world, available sup- two of which served as rationales for plies of labor and capital, along with the the tight ½scal policy pursued by the behavioral responses (‘marginal condi- Clinton administration. First, the theo- tions’) generated when ½rms maximize ry contends that by absorbing part of pro½ts and households maximize utility, the available savings flow, a ½scal de½- set the real wage and the wage share. As cit will curtail investment and reduce I noted earlier, labor-market interven- growth. While such an argument might tions can have strong effects in demand- make sense for an externally constrained led growth models. But under neoclassi- developing economy, it is irrelevant for cal growth assumptions, about all they the United States, where investment has can do is contribute to cost-side infla- exceeded saving since the early 1980s tion and dilute the ef½ciency of resource and the shortfall offset by borrowing allocation by distorting the price system. from abroad. (In fact, it is not clear that the assump- A low de½cit also supposedly puts tions really apply. Some recent empirical less pressure on ½nancial markets, so work suggests that concerns about dis- that interest rates decline. Keynes de- tortions induced by minimum wages, for bunked this idea decades ago when he example, are likely to be unjusti½ed.) observed that returns to assets in thick The inflation angle follows directly markets, like the ones for Treasury from Say’s Law. Full employment of la- bonds, are much more likely to be de- bor is now called a nairu (non-acceler- termined by transactions involving the ating inflation rate of unemployment), total volume of obligations outstanding an acronym only an economist could rather than by the relatively modest new love. There is a mainstream obsession issues resulting from the current ½scal with policy aimed at the price (or nomi- de½cit. In fact, real bond interest rates nal) as opposed to the quantity (or real) were at historically high levels leading side of the economy. Rather than creat- into and during the ½scally austere Clin- ing jobs or building infrastructure, poli- ton period, and dropped off to very low cy is now directed toward ‘inflation tar- levels after 2000 when ½scal policy be- geting,’ which often implies high inter- came highly expansionary under Bush. est rates and a strong exchange rate to Though driven in part by the Federal Re- hold employment below the nairu lev- serve’s actions, these changes were also el and reduce the cost of imports as well responses to shifting perceptions of risk as support international ½nancial trans- and inflation (possibly reversing as of actions. This combination of ‘macro mid-2007) in the bond market. Real sav- prices’ is kind to the wealthy and well- ing and investment flows were of sec- connected, but it does little to support ondary importance in this context. processes of production. Third, the belief is that because avail- Whether the interest of the public at able savings constrains total investment, large is served by this policy orientation

86 Dædalus Fall 2007 with its denigration of government ini- The flavors of econom- tiatives is an open question. Structural- ics & the ist, demand-based theories point toward public different policy goals within a broader interest socioeconomic framework. In both poor and rich countries, orthodox policy has not been notably successful for the majority of the world’s populations since it came into its heyday during the Thatch- er-Reagan period. It is high time to give that old grey mare a chance to rest.

Dædalus Fall 2007 87 Poem by Molly McQuade

Spring’s So Sad, We Want to Know Why

Spring’s so sad, we want to know why– is it the mist that slips us from our baths with memory of warmth never to be ours?

Beautiful isn’t enough, she says, face floating near a simple oval bowl flowered beyond whatever we can know,

and likely to outstay the ones who do. Cornered, somehow, by the bowl, we stare and wonder how complete we can become,

slipped from likeness on a night of spring, let alone into a pause of stars, mass and smallness merging everywhere,

leaving us to sulk and sink in self. Sweet and simple in its lonesome trust, spring will keep us simple till we pass.

Molly McQuade’s poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including “The Paris Review,” “The American Scholar,” and “Poetry,” as well as in her book “Barbarism” (2000). A new collection of her poems will be published later this year. She has received fellowships and awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the National Council of Teachers of English, among others. She has also written a collection of essays about poetry, “Stealing Glimpses” (1999), and edited “By Herself” (2000), an anthology of essays about poetry.

88 Dædalus Fall 2007 Fiction by Mary Gordon

Dilly

When I ½rst met Dilly, my husband I was exhausted from ½ghting a battle had just left me. He had left me for an- that I couldn’t win, and that I didn’t real- other woman, but I didn’t know that, ly care that much about winning: what not at the time, although it seemed that I cared about was not being perceived everyone else knew. to have lost. So I gave up, and I indulged He had a lot of money, my husband, myself by hiring a cleaning woman for and he satis½ed his conscience in regard our house in the Berkshires, although I to me by making sure that I would never was the only one there (our children, my have to worry about money–that “my children, were far away–one in Califor- lifestyle wouldn’t have to change” as a nia, one in Buenos Aires) and I could result of losing him. I forbade him to use easily, in some ways, clean up after my- the word “lifestyle” again, taking a sharp self. But I didn’t want to clean up after pleasure in at least forbidding him cer- myself; I wanted someone else to clean tain words. “All right,” he said, “I don’t up for me. The truth is, I have always want you to have to change your way of been untidy. Tidy people think untidy life.” I realized then that it meant noth- people are comfortable in their untidi- ing to him at all that I had made him ness, and some may be but I was not. My modify his language, and I felt a fool for living quarters were important to me, my brief moment of false triumph. and when they were orderly and clear I was much happier than when they were in disarray; it was simply that keeping Mary Gordon is the author of ½ve novels, includ- them that way was a task I found over- ing “Final Payments” (1978), “Men and Angels” whelming or beyond me, as if someone (1985), and most recently “Pearl” (2005), as were asking me to scuba dive without an well as numerous short stories and poems. Her air tank or a mask. non½ction works include “The Shadow Man: A I told myself that I was making this de- Daughter’s Search for her Father” (1996) and cision as a sign that I was serious about “Seeing Through Places: Reflections on Geogra- my writing. I was three-quarters of the phy and Identity” (2000). She is the recipient of way through a novel, and I thought that many honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship the best use of my time would be to and a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship. write compulsively till it was done. The writing would be both a distraction and © 2007 by Mary Gordon a satisfaction, and if the book were a suc-

Dædalus Fall 2007 89 Fiction by cess, a fuck you to my husband, who had make the tail. She was wearing a flow- Mary never created anything but capital and ered sundress, red flowers (I thought Gordon who’d claimed to be “really impressed” they must be nasturtiums) against a by my ability to “make things up out of background of light cream, and her san- whole cloth.” dals were made of thin straps, brownish I found Dilly’s name and number in red, and clearly not real leather. Her ac- the supermarket. I chose her because cent was Massachusetts working class: her advertisement was entirely business- that and her hair suggested Irishness, like and plain. Too many others tried and I was pleased with that, since I be- to be witty, and they seemed formally lieved the Irish were well known for be- drawn to the interrogative: “Do you ing able to get a joke, and that was im- love the smell of lavender?” “Don’t portant to me in anyone I hired. you have better things to do than clean I showed her around the house and your house?” Or they had line drawings, asked her some undemanding questions: probably done by one of their children, there wasn’t much to explain and not of flowers or teddy bears or houses with much for her to assert. I took her refer- chimneys producing smoke in the form ences; they were all enthusiastic about of a series of conjoined S’s. Dilly’s adher work. “You’ll love her,” ”She’s a vertisement was only straightforward doll,” “A real workhorse,” “A lifesaver.” words printed in upper case: “House- When I had ½nished speaking to all cleaning, weekly, monthly, seasonal. Ten four people whose names Dilly had years experience cleaning in the area. given me, I realized that I had just per- References available.” She was the only formed a fool’s errand. I didn’t know one I called. the referees; I didn’t know anything It was a brilliant August morning about them. They could be Dilly’s rela- when she arrived for her interview. The tives, or they could all be members of a sky was cobalt and the air smelled of criminal gang who were planning to rob heat, a heat that was warming and deli- my house and shoot me in my bed. I had cious now but in a few hours would fall no way of knowing. We had lived in the like a curse. The minute she got out of house for two years–or really I had, my the car, I liked her looks. Is that why I husband rarely came. It was meant to be hired her, because I liked her looks? Cer- my writing getaway. Later, I understood tainly that had something to do with it. that while I was in the house he was see- But it wasn’t only that I liked her looks, ing his mistress in our Beacon Hill apart- I liked the idea of what her looks sug- ment. But because I had been quiet and gested. withdrawn and private while I was there, It occurred to me even then that no- we knew almost no one in the town. The body could not like Dilly’s looks. Her man who mowed the lawn and shoveled frame was lithe; her calves and upper the driveway, the plumber, the electri- arms were lightly muscled, the muscles cian came and did their work and went. rounded, like apples; their roundness We paid their bills, but that was the end and liveliness suggested flexibility rath- of our relationship. I simply had to take er than strength, and the freckles on her it on faith, that the people whose name upper arms suggested the kind of speck- Dilly gave me were people of good will, les on an early apple. She wore her thick were the people who they said they red hair pulled back in a long ponytail, were: homeowners, people who could using the hair itself as a kind of circlet to afford to hire someone to clean their

90 Dædalus Fall 2007 house, therefore people of some sub- instead I laughed and then admitted that Dilly stance, some dependability, whom peo- I had bought the tapes but found them ple the likes of me, a stranger, could feel incomprehensible, and that, although I free to trust. liked having the birds around, I could only identify four or ½ve species. When I Dilly said she could come in ten days; looked in the bird book and thought I’d she was about to go on her honeymoon. identi½ed a new one, I would often be She was going to the Poconos. I had nev- chastened by a description like, “Native er known anyone who had gone to the of Madagascar.” Poconos for a honeymoon, but it was When I gave her a check, she asked one of those places that somehow every- if I’d mind making it out to cash; she one knew one fact about: the bathtubs didn’t want to have to pay tax on what I and the beds were heart-shaped. Why it gave her. From that time on, when it was had become the place of a certain kind Dilly’s day to clean I left a pile of bills on of person to go on a honeymoon no one the counter, under a stone whose shape ever seemed to question, and it was a had pleased me when I found it on the history I had no hope of ever ½nding out. Cape with my husband, where we used I wrote the question, “Why do people go to go in the summers when the children to the Poconos for honeymoons?” under were young. a heading in my journal, “Information She came once a week and often we there is no hope of ½nding out.” did tasks together, tasks I’d been want- ing to do for years–like alphabetizing On Dilly’s ½rst day of work, less than the spice rack or making potpourri of two weeks after we met, she ½nished the herbs in the herb garden–things her tasks quickly and asked if there was that made the house pleasant and fra- anything else that I’d like done. I said I grant and light in a way that it hadn’t couldn’t think of anything. She looked been before it had known her touch. around and asked if I’d like the birdbath One day that ½rst summer, she called emptied then hosed out. She said birds and said her mother wasn’t feeling were quite fussy about clean water, and well, and would it be possible for her she’d be glad to do it. I was ashamed that to bring her kids with her. Just this the birds’ fastidiousness was something once. “They’re quiet; they know how I hadn’t known about, or if I’d known it to mind,” she said. I said of course they I had cynically or carelessly forgotten it. were very welcome; I went upstairs to But when I started to express my embar- the room where, looking forward to fu- rassment she said, “No biggie,” and ture grandparenthood, I kept my chil- laughed. “The birds are ½ne. I just want dren’s old books and toys, although my you to be popular in the neighborhood.” children, both in their early twenties, She said she was particularly partial to showed absolutely not one sign between the ½nches, though she had no idea what them of the immediate or even near their song was. “For the life of me I can’t prospect of settling down. tell the sound of one bird from another.” I knew the children’s ages: they were And she laughed at her own lack in a way ½ve and seven. I had expected that the that entirely took away my impulse to children would look like her, but I was educate her; I had been on the point of quite surprised to see that they didn’t saying she could buy tapes that would resemble her in the slightest. They were demonstrate the song of each bird, but both blond, and their skin was pale,

Dædalus Fall 2007 91 Fiction by tending to sallow. The older one, Scott, And in fact her competence became Mary was large for his age, heavy, not fat, that essential to me. She could do many Gordon is not that kind of soft fat like those up- things around the house that a man setting boys you can’t bear to see in a could do; it wasn’t that she took the bathing suit, their overripe pectoral flesh place of my husband, but she made it too much a reminder of a misplaced possible for me to believe I didn’t need voluptuousness. Scott was wide, with a husband. She could ½x a dripping fau- thick but not long legs, like tree trunks, cet or a broken shelf or stand on a high and a broad bull-like chest. He looked ladder. If heavy lifting was required, very strong. The smaller one, Trevor, she had only to dial a number and some was slight, fast, feral. I saw that he would large willing male appeared to carry a never be fat; I feared he might one day table upstairs or move an armoire into turn brutal. I assumed they looked like a spare bedroom. Nothing in the ani- their father, but I didn’t know who their mal kingdom seemed to nonplus her. father was–if he was the person she I called her when I came upon three had just gone to the Poconos with, or ½eld mice that had drowned in a buck- someone else–and I understood that I et of rain water. I couldn’t bring my- couldn’t possibly ask. I wrote, “Is your self to deal with it. They seemed so over- new husband the father of your chil- whelmed in the bucket, floating, spin- dren?” in my journal under the head- ning, their paws delicately articulate and ing, “Questions that cannot possibly their eyes tight shut as if they were sleep- be asked.” ing. But their deadness was so complete, The children had absolutely no inter- so entirely separate from the world of est in any of the books. They were polite the living, that I couldn’t bear to look at children, so they feigned attention for a them–much less to ½gure out how they few minutes, but after a while they be- might be disposed of. “No problem,” she gan walking around the yard aimlessly, said, when she’d done whatever it was throwing sticks for the dog, who took she did with them. “They’re very stupid, no interest after one or two attempts, mice. They were just looking for a drink. his interest as feigned in sticks as theirs I think they should have found a friend- was in my books. “They’re not much lier bar.” into reading. Kind of like me,” Dilly She said this when she was washing said. I didn’t know what to say to her be- her hands, then drying them on the cause there was no way I could pretend dishtowels she had ironed the week be- that her saying that didn’t open up a gulf fore. She said there were some tasks between us, particularly because she she actively enjoyed. Ironing was one showed absolutely no regret about the of them. But what she loved most, she state of affairs she was describing. But said, was painting rooms, and that if I after a few minutes, the simplicity of had any painting projects in mind to her description, and her entire lack of please ask her. This encouraged me to shame about it–as if she were saying look closely at the dingy walls of my to me, your hair is black and mine is red study and the downstairs bathroom; to- –allowed me to relax, to feel something gether we chose colors, and for a week, I had never felt before: that I could like she came each day, in paint-covered someone, could like them very much in- overalls, and I could hear her singing as deed, although the written word didn’t she stepped on and off the ladders and matter to them at all. ripped masking tape from large blue

92 Dædalus Fall 2007 rolls. When she had ½nished painting her mood didn’t seem damped in the Dilly the bathroom–melon and lime green– least. So I didn’t feel that I had any right and my study–white with a hint of vio- to talk to her about it; I believed it was let and cobalt for the baseboards–we her tragedy and her right to cope with were both so delighted that I asked her it any way she liked. Only once did she out to lunch. She said she’d love it, but speak of his illness, and that was with she wanted to clean up ½rst. She said a the only sign of bitterness I’d seen in friend of hers had just opened a place her. She said they were in debt up to that made great soup and salad, and their ears because he had a lousy insur- that’s how I found the Mountain Breeze ance policy that didn’t cover a lot of the café, where I began going every morn- extras. ing to have coffee and homemade muf- It is only now that I understand–now ½ns and to read The New York Times. My that things will be different, will have mornings changed from a lonely time to to be–how much the changes in my life a convivial one; and I made friends with can be traced to Dilly. After she’d told a woman there who urged me to join her me about her unpaid medical bills, I gym, where I signed up for yoga and Pi- was determined to help her in some way lates, and met a group of women who all that wouldn’t be shaming for her. It is liked each other and began meeting for probably an exaggeration, but not an lunch after every Wednesday’s class. enormous one, to say that my decision It was only six months after she began to move to the town full time was helped working for me, six months after her along by my desire to do something for honeymoon in the Poconos, that her Dilly. I ½gured that if I made her my per- mother called to tell me Dilly couldn’t sonal assistant, I could give her more come that day because her husband had money, and be sure she had steady and just died. She said that if I really needed pleasant work. It occurred to me that someone to clean, she’d come and do it. since I really didn’t have a full-time job, I said no, of course not, Dilly should just I didn’t need an assistant, but my hus- call when she was ready to come back. band had given me the generous sum he She did call, a week later, and when she did because he believed I was a working came to the door I could see that she writer. And I thought that if I were going had not been altered by her grief as I to ½nish that novel, it would be of great had feared. I offered my sympathy, and help to me to clear the domestic decks. she nodded and said he’d probably been To give to Dilly the tasks that ate away misdiagnosed–he’d probably had some at my days and irritated me like gnats kind of cancer of the blood for a long around the eyes on a summer’s evening. time. She didn’t seem to want to talk Many of the tasks that had fallen to my about it; she turned from me more husband, that I hadn’t even noticed he’d quickly than she had at any of our oth- habitually done. er greetings, and made her way to the So in the fall of 2002, eighteen months broom closet. I didn’t know what to say, after I ½rst met Dilly, I sold my apart- and her reluctance to give me any infor- ment on Beacon Hill and moved to the mation silenced me completely. I didn’t country full time. I offered Dilly a twen- know who the husband was, and I never ty-hour-a-week job as my personal assis- had been able to ascertain whether he tant. was the children’s father. She never sug- When she agreed, and it seemed to gested the tragedy of an early death, and me that she was very pleased, I said we

Dædalus Fall 2007 93 Fiction by would have to be very careful to be hon- ing is a danger when you live alone; it’s Mary est with each other, because resentments a sop against boredom, and I didn’t want Gordon could crop up unless we cleared the air to reinforce my children’s fears about quickly whenever either of us was dis- me, that my mind was growing flaccid, pleased. She said, “You couldn’t be more by presenting them at Christmas with right.” But nothing ever did crop up, be- a flaccid body. And certainly, I didn’t cause Dilly was so expert at anticipating want to appear beside my ex-husband’s my needs, at picking up my preferences. whippet of a new wife as the tired old She told me about her life, but not in a shoe he’d rejected for a pair of sharp sti- way that suggested that she needed my lettos. help. She introduced me into the life of “So she calls me in, she says she wants the town, where she’d been born, and to talk to me about Scott.” that made all the difference. “How old is he now?” I asked. My children thought my life was tak- “He’s eight. Now if it was Trevor, I’d ing an alarming turn; they worried that have been worried–he can be a hellion I would become dull and flaccid of mind –but Scott has been nothing but good in the country. My daughter noticed that since the day he was born. So she says, ‘I I wasn’t talking so much about writing think Scott has some issues with bound- my novel, that I seemed more focused aries.’ Now I don’t know what the hell on local politics, particularly on issues she’s talking about, some kind of gar- of ecological concern. I only understand bage talk that means she doesn’t want now that Dilly had something to do with to come out and say what she has to say. that too. With what I now think of as the So I ask her what she means, and she end of my writing life. says, ‘Scott is, as you know, large for his age. And he’s a very affectionate little Because the last story I wrote was a boy. So he shows affection by hugging story about Dilly. And I realized that it people. But I think he’s hugging too was a story I couldn’t write. And that it much. And some of the little girls don’t didn’t matter to me very much wheth- seem to like it.’ er the story got written or not. Written, “Then she says to me, ‘Don’t get me that is, by me. Which is a way of saying, wrong, he’s a great kid, I know he’s cop- of course, written at all, for it existed ing with an overwhelming loss, his fa- only in my mind and if I didn’t make ther’s death and all, but it’s just not ap- something of it, it would simply disap- propriate to express his needs and feel- pear. ings in this way.’ It was a day in late September. Dilly “So I just lost it with this one, she’s walked in the door in a state I’d never about twenty-½ve years old, I think she’s seen her in before. Her face was flushed, taught for two years, and I say to her, and she was clearly agitated. ‘You can call me in if my son is ½ghting, “I just need to calm down a minute,” or cursing, or bringing a gun to school, she said. “I had a talk with Scott’s teach- or selling drugs. You don’t tell me there’s er, and I’m really hopping mad.” a problem because he wants to hug peo- I told her to sit down; I suggested ple he likes. You’re the one with the herbal tea, and she took me up on it. I problem.’ And I just slammed the door took some cookies from the top shelf– on her and walked out.” I leave them there so I’ll have to get on She looked at me for the ½rst time the stepladder to reach them. Overeat- since she’d walked in the door. “You

94 Dædalus Fall 2007 don’t think Scott’ll pay because I tomed velocity down the highway. I had Dilly mouthed off, do you?” her consider whether or not to stop at a “She sounds like a jerk to me,” I said. bar, decide to, order two drinks, consid- “I think you were exactly right. You have er allowing herself to be picked up, then to be on your son’s side, Scott is a great reject the idea. I had her drive home, her kid, and we can’t have a world in which head spinning because she rarely drank, people are afraid to express affection.” and speak briefly to her mother, who “If you ask me, that’s why men are so was watching the sleeping children. I screwed up, because they can’t express took her clothes off and put her into affection. So I bring my kids up to be bed. Then I couldn’t make up my mind. affectionate and loving, and they get I wrote two alternate endings. In one, trashed. I have a good mind to have him she takes both her children into the bed switched to another class.” for comfort. In the other, she resists the “I think that would be good,” I said. temptation, knowing that’s the kind of thing that will weaken them, the kind The next week, Dilly was more radiant of thing that got Scott into trouble, the than ever. She had had Scott switched to kind of thing that as a mother, she must the classroom of an older teacher who’d keep her children from. Reading them discovered that he really liked math; she over now, I still can’t decide which one was thinking of moving him up into a is right. higher group. “Thanks for your help,” she said. I couldn’t ½nish the story. I was trou- “I didn’t do anything,” I said. bled by the fact that I was writing about “You don’t know what you did. You Dilly, who was a real person with a real listened. You let me talk. You gave me life, but that I was turning her into a ½c- the time to ½gure it out for myself. I tional character, something unreal. It won’t forget it. I owe you one.” made me feel vaguely criminal, and the Did I take that as a license to turn fact that I didn’t know what the nature her encounter into a story? I certainly of the crime was–theft, murder, or gar- embellished the truth, ½lling in all the den-variety betrayal–made it all the blanks in Dilly’s life that would have more dif½cult. I began to worry about come under the category of “Questions what would happen if I ever published it. that cannot be asked,” or “Information I knew it was unlikely that Dilly would there is no hope of ½nding out.” ever read any of the small journals that I had transcribed almost verbatim the were the only places where my stories words that Dilly had used to tell me had appeared, but suppose someone told about her encounter with Scott’s teach- her? One of the women from the Moun- er, but after that I invented a scene that tain Breeze, excited by my tiny fame. answered for me the questions I had I put the story down. It was Septem- never felt free to ask myself about Dilly’s ber of 2004, and I became obsessed with sex life. the presidential election. My friends and I looked at the story today; I haven’t I–my old friends in Boston, my new looked at it for three years. After the en- friends from yoga and Pilates and the counter with the teacher, I described her Mountain Breeze café–obsessively con- pulling out of the school parking lot at sulted the Internet for the latest polls. breakneck speed in her beat-up green We made day trips to New Hampshire Taurus sedan, and driving with unaccus- to garner names for voter registration;

Dædalus Fall 2007 95 Fiction by we gave more money than we ever had low the impulse for pure description. Mary Gordon to the Democratic campaign. I never I allowed myself to describe sunsets, discussed politics with Dilly, though. which I knew were the most obvious I suspected that she didn’t care much things for someone to want to describe. about politics; I feared what I might I spent a lot of time watching the sun discover if I asked. I knew my silence set from my study window, which faces was wise when at Halloween I asked the west. I wanted to write about sunsets, boys what they were going to be for the because I knew that watching sunsets holiday. Scott said he was going to be a was something Dilly would like, some- knight in shining armor; Trevor said he thing she might do with her children, was going to be a soldier, “so I can shoot something the four of us might all enjoy, people in Eye-rack bam bam bam.” might even enjoy together. I wrote the descriptions in my journal. I no longer After George Bush was elected, I was keep a journal. It’s odd to open the old in despair, and I turned back to my one now, but I feel the need to call up writing, thinking perhaps I should at- that time, that time which has some- tend to it since the larger world seemed thing to do with all the things related hopeless. I felt that everything I’d based to Dilly that I am now trying to under- my life on was being called into ques- stand. I read the words I wrote two years tion; every bad childhood nightmare I ago: thought I had escaped was back to stay. It was that winter that I got involved in The dream of the sixties seemed only the Preservation Society. I went to the a dream, the dream of my youth: the ½rst meeting after my friend Laura, whom dream of a new world, the kind of world I’d met at the Mountain Breeze café and in which large boys were encouraged to talked into joining me for Pilates, had told hug when they felt affectionate. And it me I had to get over my political despair occurred to me that perhaps these things and the best way was to get involved in lo- were even less likely in 2004 than they cal issues, where there was at least some were when I was a child. In what we chance of making an impact. thought of as the bad old days. That perhaps, in a time when surveillance is not feared but increasingly desired, it was The fact that I couldn’t ½nish the sto- less likely than it was when I was a child ry about Dilly seemed like some sort that a boy like Scott would be allowed to of sign. I didn’t believe that anything I hug the people he liked. I was trying to could write was worth even the chance ½nd a way to put this idea into my story, of hurting Dilly. And I thought that and there was nothing in what I knew meant I wasn’t a real writer, that my that would allow a place for it. need to write wasn’t as strong as I’d One day, when I was trying to work on thought it was, as I’d convinced my ex- the story, I saw Dilly stooping and rising husband it was. I decided to put my nov- to collect wind-fallen apples, which lat- el aside and concentrate on the project er I made into apple sauce. That evening to save the wetlands from greedy devel- the house was fragrant with the scent of opers. apples and cinnamon, and I knew this The Preservation Society became the was because of her. center of my life. The meetings led to All that fall, I tried to ½nish the story social events: suddenly I was invited to and I couldn’t. I allowed myself to fol- dinners, and was giving them. I became

96 Dædalus Fall 2007 interested in gardening, and since then Last spring, the Preservation Society Dilly have had a satisfactory and entirely un- got wind of a plan to build a Wal-Mart binding affair with the man who owns on the site of what used to be a dairy the best of our many local nurseries. Be- farm three miles from the interstate ex- cause of him I’ve taken up hiking and it for our town. The Conservancy went birding, and it makes the environmen- into high gear; this was something we tal issues that we work for so real to me could rally the local population about. that they pierce my heart, as if in con- We were right that people wouldn’t templating the prospect of the degrada- want the traf½c and the eyesore of a tion of this natural beauty I were con- big box ruining our landscape. We knew templating the corruption or loss of a there’d be opposition: we were a de- beloved child. pressed area and people needed jobs, There seemed to be an endless series but we weren’t ready for the obvious- of issues needing our attention, and I ness and radicalness of the split. Mid- became more pro½cient on the comput- dle-class people didn’t want the Wal- er: creating graphics for our flyers and Mart, working-class people did. expanding our database. I taught Dilly We tried to have meetings that would some computer skills, which she hadn’t make it clear to the people who support- had before, but which she picked up very ed Wal-Mart that in the long run it quickly. When I suggested she take some would be a bad idea for them; Wal-Mart computer courses at the community col- drove out small businesses, and the jobs lege, she told me one thing she had no were lousy and exploitative. I was given interest in was any more school. “The the particular task of trying to formulate last thing I need is more pressure. No language that wouldn’t be class-inflect- thanks,” she said. She could be ½rm in ed and therefore alienating. her refusals, and even when I thought I tried to talk to Dilly about it, but she they were unwise, I saw a greater unwis- put her hands over her ears and said, dom in trying to oppose her. There was “Oh, Eve, you know it’s not the kind of the time when she told me Scott hadn’t thing I can get my brain around.” I gave done so well in school, and the teacher her more and more hours doing things was demanding that he read three books like picking up Xeroxing and taking and write three book reports over the prospectuses to the sign makers. She summer to make up his de½ciencies. I said she was glad of the extra money; offered to help. Dilly said, “No, thanks, her kids seemed to grow out of their he needs to learn to do things on his clothes before they grew into them. own. He’s a real procrastinator. A real buck-passer. Now math, he’s all over At the very time when I needed her it. Give him math to do he’ll sit on his most, when we were preparing for the behind for hours on end. But anything vote in the town council that would de- with words, it just bores him and he termine whether the formerly farmed won’t put his mind to it. He’s got to area would be rezoned commercially, break through that himself.” Dilly came to work more delighted than “I’m available any time,” I said, but I’d ever seen her. we both knew she wouldn’t take me up “You’ll never guess, Eve. Maybe my on it. luck’s changing, I never win anything. But my friend, Betsey, she worked for one of those pyramid schemes, selling

Dædalus Fall 2007 97 Fiction by ½re extinguishers, and if you let her do my feet feel sweaty and oppressed. She Mary a demonstration in your house and sighed with every item she picked up, Gordon wrote up a form saying you’d seen all and I felt ashamed for everything about the stuff and bought one (which I did, my domestic life. She moved the fur- we needed a ½re extinguisher, I’d never niture vengefully as she vacuumed in even thought of one), and you mailed it places I wouldn’t even know how to in, I mean the questionnaire, if you did name. She refused to use the geranium- that you were eligible for a raffle to win scented cleaner I preferred to 409: she a trip to Disney World. A whole week, said she’d bought some new cleaners all expenses paid. Do you believe it? I for her kitchen and bathroom, and she won. Me. So the kids and I are going, in swore by them, and she wasn’t going to two weeks. It’s the dream of a lifetime.” use anything else. I didn’t feel I had the I was upset; Dilly’s help had never right to disagree. been more crucial. Her connection to I was working in my study when she all the local merchants and laboring knocked on the door. Her face was red; men was vital to our getting the word her breathing was labored. I thought she out. But what could I say? She looked so was going to tell me she’d had a heart happy. It wasn’t like her not to consider attack. “I found this in the garbage,” how she might be inconveniencing me. she said. She opened her closed ½st and At the same time as I was hurt by it, I threw a twenty-dollar bill on the desk. was glad for her. She’d never had the “Oh, my goodness,” I said, in a voice luxury of heedlessness, and I was glad so girlish and abashed I could hardly to see her don it, like a silly hat or too- recognize it. “I can’t imagine how it got high heels. She said her mother would there.” I was telling the truth, I couldn’t be glad to pitch in if I needed help. I said imagine how twenty dollars had fallen that I’d love it if she could just do a day’s into the wastebasket–I could only guess housework; I was up to my neck in polit- that it had happened when I was trying ical stuff. She said her mother made her to clean out my exercise bag after a bot- look sick as a cleaner, I’d be really im- tle of foundation had spilled into it. I pressed. I agreed to have her mother was hot with shame, as if Dilly’s mother come for one day the following week. had uncovered something unspeakable, and I thought about the connection be- I’d never met Dilly’s mother; I’d only tween money and shit. And suddenly I talked to her once when she phoned to didn’t understand what had happened say Dilly’s husband had died. I was sur- because I didn’t understand what money prised when I saw her: I suppose I ex- was: was it shit or gold, the most desir- pected some of Dilly’s litheness, her able thing in the world or the thing that goldness or rosiness, but her mother must be hidden, never spoken of. And I was heavy in every way that it was pos- was ashamed because of my lack of un- sible to be. She was overweight, but derstanding, and the dishonesty that un- that wasn’t the most important thing derlay it–and I was frightened, as Ma- about her heaviness. It was her tread; rie Antoinette must have been fright- every step she took seemed like a com- ened when she heard herself saying, “Let plaint or a reproach, and although it was them eat cake.” Perhaps the moment she late August, and she was wearing khaki said it she knew that she’d be led to the shorts, she wore heavy grey wool socks guillotine, and that the people who led with her tan Reeboks, and they made her there would be right to do it.

98 Dædalus Fall 2007 “You can’t imagine it. I’ll bet you She pushed past me and took the Dilly can’t. Well, I can imagine it,” she said. twenty-dollar bill off the desk. She “I can imagine it very well. You have ripped it in half, then in four pieces, then so much money you can throw it away. eight, and then sixteen. She dropped it Twenty dollars means nothing to you. onto my desk so the pieces fell onto my Nothing. You think money is nothing. computer keyboard. Then she walked You think it’s garbage. You don’t even out the door. think about it. Do you know what it would mean to Dilly? It might mean I sat with my head in my hands, as if I’d she could buy herself some new clothes just been shot. I must have been sitting or go to the beauty parlor. Or maybe that way when the telephone rang. It was even the dentist. She takes her kids to Dilly’s mother. “Look, Mrs. Harrison, the dentist, but she can’t afford to go I’m sorry. Don’t pay any attention to herself. Last year she got a tooth pulled what I said. I get that way sometimes. I because she couldn’t afford a root ca- think it’s my time of life, you know what nal. I don’t suppose you knew about I mean. I mean, we’re about the same that, did you. I don’t suppose you ever time of life, so I’m sure you understand. noticed that gap in the back of her I just go off my head sometimes, and I mouth when she laughs hard or smiles say things, I don’t even mean them. Dil- wide. No, you wouldn’t. You and your ly’d be real freaked out if she knew what fancy friends. Trying to keep the Wal- I did. I have to ask you as a favor, as a Mart away. If the Wal-Mart was there, mother you have to understand, just to maybe my Dilly could get a real job. keep this between ourselves.” Something that would lead to some- “Of course,” I said. thing. Instead of working for you and “It’s just that I worry about her so your fancy friends. What’s going to much, I always have. She’s not like oth- happen to her when she gets old? Are er people. She’s not like my other kids; you going to take care of her? She won’t she’s my youngest, and I guess we even have Social Security. But no, she spoiled her, or her father spoiled her, likes you and your nice ways and your God knows I always tried. ‘Life isn’t a nice things, and that you talk nice to dream, Dilly,’ I was always saying to her. her and take her out to lunch on her She wanted some kind of life that was birthday. But it’s no good for her. You’re only a dream. And then she saw your spoiling her. You’re spoiling her just life, with all your nice things; she loves like you’ve been spoiled. But she won’t nice things, she always did, we used to stand for it forever. She’ll leave you flat call her Lady Day, and sometimes we’d one day, just as soon as she gets a little turn it into ‘Lah-di dah’ when we felt sense.” she wasn’t pulling her weight. You could “But I thought she wanted it that never make her do anything on time, way, my paying her under the table . . . and she liked that about your life: ‘Eve I thought it was better for her.” never seems to be in a rush.’ Well, time “It would have been better for her if is money I said to her, and that’s what she’d never met you. She might get a you don’t have. You see, she isn’t strong. regular job in a normal place where she Any kind of pressure does her in. ‘I can’t could meet people her own age, maybe stand the stress,’ she says that so much, somebody she could go out with on a she puts her hands over her ears like normal date or something.” someone’s shouting at her. No one’s

Dædalus Fall 2007 99 Fiction by shouting at you Dilly, I say, take your will only be fair. And then, when we Mary hands away from your ears. It’s why she have the same amount of money, we can Gordon didn’t go to college. She thinks it’s so talk about the environment and the war great. That you never seem to be in any and the way the world should be. And rush to do anything. She thinks it’s a real until we do, there is nothing we can say life, what you have. But it isn’t. Not for to each other. Because otherwise every- her. It’s just a dream, a dream that will thing is a lie. Or as your mother says, a keep her from waking up. ‘Wake up, Dil- dream. ly, life is real,’ I always used to say that to And I realized how many of the things her. She’s got to toughen up. And I don’t that come under the heading, “Things see it happening. Don’t tell her I said that cannot be talked about,” or “Ques- any of this to you. She’d die a thousand tions that cannot be asked,” were about deaths.” money. That, even more than sex, mon- “I wouldn’t say anything to Dilly,” I ey was the thing we feared to mention, said. that could cause ruptures in a friendship “I owe you one,” Dilly’s mother said, that could never be repaired. And I felt and hung up the phone. very stupid that I hadn’t understood that in my life ever before. I sat at my desk for half an hour, not Am I bad for you, Dilly, I want to say, knowing what to think or what to do. when she comes up the path. Was meet- There was a meeting of the committee ing me a bad thing for your life? Should I that night, and I called my friend Laura send you away to make your life better? and said I was under the weather. Laura She is carrying a plastic bag covered was upset: “You can’t afford to be un- with the images of Disney characters: der the weather right now. Every day Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald Duck. “I counts.” I said I’d be back on board to- brought you something–it was the on- morrow. ly thing in Disney World I thought you It’s tomorrow now; tomorrow is today wouldn’t hate,” she says. She’s brought and Dilly is home from Orlando. What me two pounds of Kona coffee, which will I say to her when I see her? smells intoxicating, even through the All I can think of are the things I can’t plastic. say. All the questions I can’t ask. Do you “How was your holiday, Dilly?” think you’d be better off working at “It was great, but it was stressful. I’m Wal-Mart? Do you understand that the so glad to be home.” She looks around wages are terrible and that they cheat my kitchen and opens up her arms. She you out of bene½ts? Do you want me to smiles one of her wonderful smiles. She report your income so you can be eligi- puts her hand on my forearm. Her hand ble for Social Security? Do you want me is warm and ½rm and slightly but pleas- to pay for your health insurance? Do you ingly damp. “You know, Eve,” she says, want me to pay for you to go to the den- “I just can’t wait to get back to work.” tist? Do you want half my money? That’s what I really want to say. I want to say, Dilly, I have more than enough money and you don’t have enough. Let’s share. Let’s share until we have exactly the same amount of money, and if I have to work harder to make ends meet, that

100 Dædalus Fall 2007 Dialogue between Cornel West & D. Graham Burnett

Metaphysics, money & the Messiah: a conversation about Melville’s “The Con½dence-Man”

Reality used to be a friend of mine . . . –P.M. Dawn

Editor’s note: This spring, the Princeton historian D. Graham Burnett sat down with his colleague Cornel West to discuss their responses to a quintessentially American parable, “The Con½dence-Man: His Masquerade,” the last long-form work of prose ½ction by Herman Melville (1819–1891). This strange tale of performance, deception, and sudden intimacies is built out of a sequence of glancing encounters among the passengers of a Mississippi riverboat bound for New Orleans. Who is who in the story is never quite clear, and when money changes hands (as it often does), there are usually reasons for concern–not least because of the shad- owy presence of the title character, whose rosy promises entrance even the cautious. Set on April Fool’s Day (and published on April 1, 1857), “The Con½dence-Man”–though a critical and commercial disaster at the time–has now puzzled, beguiled, and inspired Melville readers for a century and a half.

d. graham burnett: Cornel, it feels Cornel West, a Fellow of the American Academy like a good time to have a serious con- since 1999, is Class of 1943 University Professor versation about a dif½cult text. And I ½g- at Princeton University. His published works in- ured we could dig right in, since it is a clude “Race Matters” (1993), “The Future of the premise of Melville’s The Con½dence-Man Race” (with Henry Louis Gates Jr., 1997), and that here in the United States perfect “Democracy Matters” (2004). West recently re- strangers can walk right up to each other leased a new album, “Never Forget: A Journey of and start on a serious conversation. Revelations.” cornel west: We’re hardly strangers, D. Graham Burnett is an associate professor of though, brother Graham. history at Princeton University. He is the author of “Masters of All They Surveyed” (2000), “A dgb: So true–it is almost twenty years Trial By Jury” (2001), “Descartes and the Hy- now since I sat as a sophomore in your perbolic Quest” (2005), and “Trying Leviathan” course on “Cultural Criticism,” weeping (2007). like a baby, along with about three hundred other impressionable youths, at © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Dædalus Fall 2007 101 Dialogue your lecture on the death of Socrates. We are told about something Heraclitus between said to visitors who wanted to get to see Cornel Many years gone by, and now our of- West & ½ces are a hundred yards apart. Even him. Approaching, they found him warm- D. Graham so, it is a conceit of this book that in ing himself in an oven. Surprised, they Burnett some sense we are all fundamentally stood there in consternation–above all strangers, no? because he encouraged them to come in without fear, saying: “Even here the gods cw: That’s right, that’s true. are present.”1 dgb Now the juxtaposition may seem a little : So let’s dive in, and start with a far-fetched, but Heraclitus is mentioned scene that sets the stage for everything by name in The Con½dence-Man, so we that follows, namely, the introduction know that Melville is engaged with this of the character called ‘Black Guinea.’ character, and the circumstantial con- You will remember that Melville offers sonances in the scenes are not trivial. us the pathetic picture of an apparently Moreover that last line–“even here the crippled Black beggar pleading for alms gods are present,” “einai gar kai entautha aboard the Mississippi steamer, Fidèle, theous”–resonates in a powerful way where all the action of the novel will un- with the larger themes of this novel. In- fold. Guinea and a “purple-faced drover” deed, I want to suggest that this tagline– strike up a conversation. And the drover here tacitly cited, we might say, by Mel- asks the supplicant, “But where do you ville–amounts to an antithesis of the live?” And Guinea replies, “All ’long traditional trope et in arcadia ego . . . shore, sar; dough now I’se going to see brodder at der landing; but chiefly I libs cw: Even here in the garden the devil is in der city.” And the drover replies, “St. present . . . Louis, ah? Where do you sleep there of nights?” and Black Guinea replies, “On dgb: Right. And as you know, the dom- der floor of der good baker’s oven, ser.” inant thread of twentieth-century criti- And the drover replies, “In an oven? cism of The Con½dence-Man reads the Whose, pray? What baker, I should like story’s central ½gure–the shape-chang- to know, bakes such black bread in his ing huckster-demiurge who promenades oven, alongside of his nice white rolls, through this ‘masquerade’ in different too. Who is that too charitable baker, incarnations, selling dreams and preach- pray?” “Dar he be,” replies Black Gui- ing hope–as a Satanic presence. Black nea, “with a broad grin lifting his tam- Guinea would appear to be the ½rst of bourine high over his head.” “The sun is the baker, eh?” replies the drover, a supposition Guinea con½rms: “Yes sar, 1 For an account of the translation problems this passage offers, as well as a comprehensive in der city dat good baker warms der discussion of interpretations of its signi½cance, stones for dis ole darkie when he sleeps see Pavel Gregoric, “The Heraclitus Anecdote: out on der pabements o’ nights.” De Partibus Animalium i 5.645a17–23,” Ancient What’s going on here? I’m not sure, Philosophy 21 (2001): 73–85. Gregoric joins the but I propose that we consider this curi- preponderance of modern commentators in rejecting Heidegger’s glossing of “pros t¯oi ipn¯oi” ous exchange in light of the following as ‘in the oven,’ preferring ‘at’ or ‘by’; admit- excerpt from Aristotle’s Parts of Animals, tedly, these latter were also preferred by Aris- famously cited in Heidegger’s Letter on totle’s early-nineteenth-century English trans- Humanism: lators.

102 Dædalus Fall 2007 these incarnations, as well as the point cw: It’s a fascinating reading. I mean Metaphys- of departure for the whole tale: his in- ics, mon- right off we have to keep in mind that ey & the vocation of a list of “good, kind, honest Melville has a history of using Black Messiah ge’mman” who will vouch for his bona characters as a way of concealing an ex- ½des becomes the roster of con men (or, istential profundity vis-à-vis supposed- perhaps more precisely, the roster of dis- ly sophisticated society. You think right guises for Black Guinea himself ) we will away of Pip, for example, in Moby-Dick. encounter in the pages that follow. And when Sterling Stucky talks about But against this diabolical reading I of- the crucial role of Black characters and fer the Heraclitan apothegm: “Even here Black culture in Melville, he makes you the gods are present.” Even here, as in think of the Black church at the very ‘even in this broken black body’; even beginning of Moby-Dick that becomes a here, as in ‘even here in the heart of the kind of pre½guration of that blackness Americas.’ I would like to believe that at of blackness that Melville is going to be this moment Melville is self-consciously wrestling with in the novel as a whole. offering us this lowly ½gure as a kind of This is the grand Melville saying, profound metaphysician, and asking us ‘Well, let’s look at those on the underside already, from the outset, to be worried of American civilization, the Pips and about our inability to see philosophical the Black Guineas, who not only have profundity where we least expect it. At much to say, but have a power of disclos- the same time, I see Melville staking a ing and revealing a certain kind of shal- claim to America as a place for philoso- lowness and hollowness at the heart of a phy and theology, not merely a place for civilization that claims to be thick with commerce and wilderness–even here, plenitude and girded with certainty.’ the gods are present, even here on a riv- But when you point to this business erboat in the muddy middle stretches of with Black Guinea and the oven, the the Mississippi. stove, you get me thinking of Descartes The most radical claim, then, would be as a stove philosopher: Descartes in Ger- that this Heraclitan invocation of Black many at his stove, wrestling with skep- Guinea signals the high ambition of the ticism, wrestling with doubt–this is a text: to serve as the evangel of a distinc- ½gure who is dealing with the grounds tively American metaphysical posture. of con½dence, the problem that lies at This is a book about what America offers the center of Melville’s text. to the problems of thought and being: See, I think it’s key to read The Con- space, movement, destabilized social hi- ½dence-Man against two other literary erarchies, perpetual and sequential op- texts in American culture: Miss Lonely- portunities for self-invention. At one hearts, by Nathanael West; and Eugene point, in an irruption of authorial voice, O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh. I think Melville writes that there are only a of Miss Lonelyhearts, where you get the handful of ‘original’ characters in all of hero/antihero who comes in and reveals literature: original like a Hamlet, or a that we have no grounds for our con½- Don Quixote. And yet it is clear that the dence in the world–not in the arts, not con½dence-man is such a character–our even in religion. He becomes a Christ autochthonous philosophical persona. ½gure who is simultaneously, in a sense, America itself is the condition of possi- an Antichrist. He is not the devil, exactly, bility for this ½gure. but he is a kind of veiled ½gure, a Christ

Dædalus Fall 2007 103 Dialogue in disguise who is unable to deliver like cw: Yes, that’s right, to be sure. between Cornel the traditional Christ ½gure delivered. West & Similarly so with that extraordinary dgb: And so I think of Kierkegaard, D. Graham character Hickey in The Iceman Cometh. Burnett who wants us to begin by remembering Hickey too is a kind of problematic that belief–faith–is not knowledge, Christ ½gure–not simply an Antichrist, that there is a condition of “waiting to but really a Christ who can’t deliver, a have revelation of what was in fact the Christ who sells dreams. But it is even case,” and that’s the experience of our stranger than that: he sells the death lives. We do not know what follows our of dreams too. He sells con½dence but immediate perceptual existence, and it spawns a lack of con½dence. He sows is only once we know what follows that the hope and transformation, but in the end life we have lived can be understood un- he spawns radical distrust, even destruc- der its proper aspect, under the aspect tion. of eternity. This is the central problem These ½gures, these prophets of the of the small volume Kierkegaard pub- pipe-dream, are deeply rooted not just lished in the same year as Fear and Trem- in Melville as a whole, but particularly bling: the book called On Repetition. So in this text. we are cursed, required, to live in this Now another way of talking about suspended state, without knowledge of all this is to look to Luke 18:8, and that that which is determinative of our con- famous question, “When the son of dition. Can Melville’s text be read as man comes will he ½nd faith on earth?” an account of the necessity of faith in a Now by “faith” here we’re not talking Kierkegaardian, or existential, mode? about just faith in God–we’re talking about the ½ducial constitution of our cw: Yes, you’re right on the mark in existence, the ½duciary dimension of terms of shifting from the more Carte- the human condition. The kind of thing sian conception of ‘epistemology’ to the Michael Polanyi talked about with great more existential conceptions of what insight in Personal Knowledge back in the great H. Richard Niebuhr, the ½nest 1958. American theological mind of the twentieth century, called “pistology” in his dgb: I’m struck by your reference to the posthumous volume Faith on Earth. By fundamental preoccupation with faith in pistology he means this existential be- this text. It has seemed to me at different lief you are talking about, the business moments that The Con½dence-Man might of trying to ½nd some kind of meaning plausibly be read against Kierkegaard’s in a world of overwhelming chaos, in Fear and Trembling in the following way: the world that Samuel Beckett calls “the Melville is acutely aware of the necessity mess.” Pistology means imposing some of using distrust as a method for the pro- order on the mess. duction of knowledge–“I have con½- Now take that wonderful line about dence in distrust” or “I have trust in dis- Melville in Hawthorne’s diary entry of trust,” his characters say, parroting the November 20, 1856: “He can neither be- stove philosopher himself–and yet this lieve nor be comfortable in his unbelief.” text seems steeped in the awareness that That says a great deal. Here’s Melville knowledge itself cannot save us. contemplating annihilation; he’s wrestling to ½nd some meaning–now, here.

104 Dædalus Fall 2007 This is an existential struggle; this isn’t cw: Yes, well, as we know, Melville Metaphys- ics, mon- an epistemological problem in the more stood in a very complicated relationship ey & the technical sense used by our colleagues to Emerson. We know from the letters Messiah over in the philosophy department. This that he characterized him as a great man is a Kierkegaardian struggle, to be sure. –as a diver, as a man who could dive. We are in the realm of pistology here, Melville said you can always see some- since what H. Richard Niebuhr had in thing in a man when he goes beyond mind is that Greek word pistis, a term in mediocrity, when he goes beyond easily the Koine Greek of the New Testament discernible qualities, and Herman Mel- that usually gets translated ‘faith.’ Pis- ville saw that in Ralph Waldo Emerson. tology has to do with self-involved, self- On the other hand, though, maybe Wal- invested, self-immersed conceptions of do’s just a Plato who talked through his belief. It is what William James talks nose. That is to say, maybe in the end about in The Will to Believe: you’re actual- he’s someone who really didn’t have an ly putting your life at stake, you’re on the understanding of the depth of the dark- edge of the abyss, you’re trying to ½nd ness of the human condition–he re- some meaning that sustains you in your fused to linger on the darkness. It’s like trajectory from womb to tomb. So this is Goethe’s relation to Von Kleist, you existential in the deepest sense. know: “I don’t want to deal with the darkness too long; I’m going to push the dgb: And if we ask ‘what’s the differ- fearsome text aside, and move toward ence between faith and con½dence?’ the cloudless sky.” we get–etymologically speaking–just that little particle at the front end, ‘con,’ dgb: So what about the part of The Con- which has come to mean deception, but ½dence-Man that has been interpreted as has a prior sense of ‘with or among.’ In directly satirical of Emerson and Tho- that latter sense at least, though perhaps reau both, namely, the encounter be- in both, we catch a glimpse of the desire tween the protean ‘cosmopolitan’ and for each other–the spiritual and materi- these two bizarre characters: the ‘mys- al need for each other, the appetite for tic’ Mark Winsome (usually read as each other–that is so important to this Emerson) and his ‘practical disciple’ Eg- book. bert (usually read as Thoreau). The subject of their encounter is–as always in cw: Absolutely. We are hungry for cul- The Con½dence-Man–money. tivated fellowship. This is a book about paideia, but it is a book that is uneasy cw: Part of the genius of Melville is about that too–in every ‘con’ there’s a that he understood William James’s in- little ‘con,’ if you know what I mean! sight: that the core of the religious and existential problem for human beings *** is the call for help. It’s no accident that Miss Lonelyhearts begins with that call: dgb: Let’s talk about Emerson for a mo- the Christ ½gure there has to answer all ment. Emerson is one of your heroes, these terrible anonymous letters writ- but Melville can be read to offer a pretty ten to the newspaper, where people bare damning indictment of the Sage of Con- their hearts and cry out in their pain– cord. there is the girl with no nose, there is the

Dædalus Fall 2007 105 Dialogue victim of sexual abuse, and on and on. A some says, “For to every philosophy between Cornel suffering humanity, calling for help: that there are certain rear parts, very impor- West & is who we are. tant parts, and these, like the rear of D. Graham It is clear that Melville understood a one’s head, are best seen by reflection.” Burnett certain version–yes, maybe a dominant Yes, there’s something scatological version–of Emerson’s conception of about this, as critics have been quick to ‘self-reliance’ as ultimately a philosophy point out, but I want to argue that ulti- that didn’t allow persons authentically mately in this text the ‘rear part’ of phi- to call for help. On this view human be- losophy is money. Cornel, you know the ings were autonomous enough, self-suf- expression ‘money-shot’? ½cient enough, to make their way. We know that Melville couldn’t ac- cw: Yes I do. cept the dogmatic and orthodox Chris- tian conception of that call for help, and dgb: Well we might say that what Mel- of the obligation to respond. But he nev- ville does to Emersonian transcendental- ertheless believed that the call was real, ism is hoss it in front of the camera for that it was inescapable, and that a reply its money-shot. And the money-shot is a was indispensable. In his view anybody tight shot on an open wallet. My sexual- who plans to fly from cradle to grave ized term isn’t gratuitous. It’s explicit in without ever calling for help–at the the ‘hypothetical’ disputation between most profound level–is somebody who the cosmopolitan and Egbert in this is deeply confused, somebody whose same scene: the cosmopolitan says (it’s philosophy has a gaping hole in the mid- the refrain of the whole novel), “I am in dle, a hole in its soul. And so Winsome want–urgent want of money,” to which ends up being this surface-like ½gure. Egbert replies dismissively that to call Yes, for sure, it’s an indictment of Em- for a loan on the basis of friendship is erson, but we have to keep in mind that “in platonic love to demand love rites.” Melville also had some appreciation of So we come to the metaphysical mon- the real Emerson, so we don’t want to ey-shot: ‘I know that you have a great confuse Winsome with Emerson him- deal to say about God, and Jesus, and self. In the end Melville’s argument is Love, and Truth, but here is the thing: that Emersonian con½dence in ‘self-re- I’m in want, I’m in urgent want, of a hun- liance’ is too easily earned, that this so- dred dollars.’ At this point it doesn’t mat- lipsistic trust is too lightly assumed, too ter what book is on the table, what vast glibly presupposed. It skipped the strug- pronouncement is on the lips, what Bud- gle and the call for help that Melville un- dha or Mahatma or carpenter’s son is at derstood to be at the core of the human the front of the room–we are going to experience. see the philosophy in action. I take it to be a lemma of The Con½- dgb: You make the call for help sound dence-Man that you should never have a like a dark night of the soul, but in The prophet or a guru or a priest or a savior Con½dence-Man that call often bleats to whom you have not owed actual mon- from the dark night of the wallet. What ey. When you see a promising messianic about the money? You remember that candidate on the horizon, you have to when Winsome introduces his disciple walk right up and ask to borrow one hun- Egbert, we get this strange line: Win- dred dollars, by way of opening overture.

106 Dædalus Fall 2007 cw: That’s a fascinating read. But I’ve of the author, and even biographical de- Metaphys- ics, mon- got a different take on all this. You re- tails–so we are back with Melville, ter- ey & the member at the end of Vico’s The New Sci- ri½ed of ½nancial ruin, wrestling with Messiah ence, where he says that one cannot be a death, and struggling with his complex wise man without piety, that piety is a relations to his father . . . precondition of wisdom? By piety he means what Plato is talking about in dgb: So let’s ½t that back with what the Euthyphro, which is indebtedness to we were saying earlier about the limits the sources of good in one’s life. So pie- of knowledge. I said before that this ty really means acknowledging what text knows knowledge cannot save us. was in place or antecedent to you as you And so we drew out Descartes and Kier- made your entrée and as you attempt to kegaard, and suggested that The Con½- sustain yourself. dence-Man understands the problem: Another way of putting it is this: ‘ok, there are certain moves that you when Melville writes, “to every philos- can make to try your claims to truth ophy there are certain rear parts,” I am using radical doubt, skepticism, and so thinking of Heidegger, and of the im- forth, but when you are ½nished razing plicit background conditions that are the castles of deception, you are still go- tacitly presupposed in any philosophi- ing to need ground under your feet, and cal articulation or expression. Gadamer a roof over your head.’ This is the foun- has made much of this. Polanyi also has dational problem, and it remains a prob- made much of this, in terms of the tacit lem of belief. Are the ‘hinder parts of a dimension of epistemic claims. It goes philosophy’ legible as the problem of all the way to Edmund Burke, where belief? prejudices are actually positive things, the very things that enable us to make cw: Well, the real question is whether the kind of knowledge claims that we Melville believes anything can save us. make. These background conditions Can belief really save us? What if your have to be made explicit by means of life preserver doesn’t float? Melville serious interrogation, reflection, and might be precluding any sources of sal- so forth, and therefore there’s no such vation here, and this is where the issue thing as a legitimate autonomy inde- of the godhead becomes important. Re- pendent of a piety–a piety that must member that one line, brother, where he be enacted; there’s no such thing as a talks about maybe the devil understands legitimate autonomy independent of an who we are better than the creator does? acknowledgement of that which came It jumps out . . . before. Charles Taylor, of course, has offered profound insights in this regard, dgb: It’s chapter 22, “Tusculan Dispu- and Rorty and others have picked it up. tations,” toward the end. And the line If all this is true, then it means that is–what an amazing line!–I’ll read it: some kind of historicist sensibility–in “The devil is very sagacious. To judge the form of a pietistic invocation or ac- by the event, he appears to have under- knowledgement of what was in place stood man better even than the Being prior to any kind of philosophical claim who made him.” –cannot be avoided. This means that philosophy becomes tied to history, so- cw: Yes, that’s the one! ciety, tradition, the existential condition

Dædalus Fall 2007 107 Dialogue dgb: Being with a capital B? I hadn’t dgb: It’s worrisome, I can’t lie. And yet between Cornel noticed that. Talk about a Heideggerian I am still resistant to interpreting the West & moment . . . scene as a victory for the powers of dark- D. Graham ness. I see the extinction of the solar Burnett cw: Reminds me a little bit of Schel- lamp as the extinction of the whole busi- ling’s great essay of 1809 on the essence ness of truth and falsehood, the extinc- of human freedom, where the very god- tion of the adolescent preoccupation head itself becomes the center of a civil with epistemology, with the ‘really-real’ war between the kingdom of light and and how we know it. We are being led– the kingdom of darkness. It’s a poetic to invoke Nietzsche–out of the ‘bad air’ text, and it has to do with whether the of a cabined theology into a perfectly Satanic forces are actually more insight- perspectival universe–and being led by ful regarding who we are as human be- a new kind of savior: the player, the sil- ings than the being who supposedly ver-tongued belief-maker, the tambou- created Lucifer himself. So you get this rine man of dreams. We could do a lot battle in the godhead, and this is part worse! This is no descent into blasphe- of the problem of evil. You know Hei- mous despair. Ultimately, the text pre- degger has great lectures on this, the lec- sents a powerful account of faith: gen- tures shortly after he left the Nazis, in uinely prohibit any gesture toward on- the summer of 1936 at Freiburg, where tological fundamentals, and you have he says that Schelling is the greatest phi- changed the game; cling to your faith losopher of the nineteenth century– right up to the moment you die, and other than Nietzsche, of course. you have made it. There is no place from which the rightness or wrongness of dgb: This goes beyond a traditional sto- your view can be assessed. The notion ry of Manicheanism, where the issue is of your ‘wrongness’ trades on an implic- mere strength. The issue here is some- it–and formally illegitimate–God’s-eye thing much stranger: it’s a Manichean- view. ism of savvy, of intimacy, of even something like sympathy. Terrifying! cw: That is too rosy, brother–too rosy. You put me in mind of the apocalyp- The text is so fundamentally open-end- tic conclusion of this book, where, by ed. It isn’t going to save conventional the sputtering light of that histrionical- Christianity for you. After all, even when ly allegorical “solar lamp”–with its two you wander out into this new world, sides, one showing a “horned altar, from you’re still in the hold of a ship of fools which flames arose,” the other “the ½g- –and this takes us back to Sebastian ure of a robed man, his head encircled Brandt’s great work of 1494, Das Narren- by a halo”–our possibly diabolical cos- schiff. Melville is deeper than Nietzsche mopolitan leads the doddering, white- here. Perspectival? Brother Nietzsche haired, Bible-reading father ½gure into closed a lot of questions. He was nothing the labyrinth of scriptural apocrypha be- if not sure about many answers . . . fore whisking him off the stage and into the darkness. This is worrisome, to be dgb: Christanity’s wrong, Judaism’s sure! wrong, Democracy’s wrong, science is wrong . . . cw: So you admit to the diabolism now!

108 Dædalus Fall 2007 cw: And Melville is deeper than that. *** Metaphys- There is a level of existential interroga- ics, mon- dgb ey & the tion here, and a Socratic questioning : What about truth? Melville puts in Messiah that keeps things open. Which doesn’t the mouth of a forbidding character–the mean the text is unreadable. I don’t like ‘ursine’ Missourian, clad in skins–one of it when the critics say it’s unreadable; the most memorable lines of the whole I think it’s very readable. There is play book: here, but it’s not a Derridean free play, [W]ith some minds truth is, in effect, not because it is too earnest and serious to so cruel a thing after all, seeing that, like a be Derridean. And in fact the comedy loaded pistol found by poor devils of sav- has dif½culty surfacing. We get it at the ages, it raises more wonder than terror– very end, with the laughing of the little its peculiar virtue being unguessed, un- flame-colored boy in the last chapter, less, indeed, by indiscreet handling, it but the laughter is so tear-soaked and should happen to go off of itself. hard-earned that it is very different from what we associate with deconstruction- This image is a notch more complicated ist readings, it seems to me. This is cer- than the later business about truth as a tainly not just about language or textual- ‘thrashing-machine.’ That we get: truth ity; this is really all about the humanist is dangerous, but used correctly, it feeds notion of the soul, and the heart, and us–it’s a tool. Much more unsettling is our tragic choices. Melville recognizes this business about the loaded gun. Be- the price you have to pay for each option cause what we have here is truth that you chose, and isn’t that the truth? is in fact not scary or dangerous at all at ½rst. Rather, it’s fascinating–until dgb: You have to pay to play, the cosmo- we screw around with it just a little politan might say. Are we back to money, too much, ignoramuses that we are. At the fundamentally transactional charac- which point it may or may not be fatal, ter of the call for help? but its real ‘virtue’–death-dealing–we only realize too late. Moreover, once it cw: Do you remember that wonderful has ‘gone off’ it is, it would seem, per- line in Miss Lonelyhearts when Nathan- fectly inert forevermore. And this feels ael West says something like, “The to me like a powerful way of under- commercial spirit is the father of lies”? standing the ‘loadedness’ of the episte- There’s always a whiff of death when we mological enterprise, of the whole West- talk about lies and mendacity, so you get ern philosophical tradition since Des- this existential connection with the eco- cartes . . . nomic, just as we have the link between cw epistemology and the state of one’s soul. : I think of the ½nal scene again, and Yes, this is all a kind of Socratic ques- the voices calling from the darkness: tioning, an open investigation of what “To bed with ye, ye divils, and don’t be it means to be human–but at the same after burning your ½ngers with the likes time you’re right that there is something of wisdom.” We get truth as a gun that very American here, in terms of the could go off at any moment and wis- ubiquitous character of market relations dom as a consuming ½re better left un- and business transactions. touched.

Dædalus Fall 2007 109 Dialogue dgb: What do we make of these ways of doggedly in that dangerous interval dur- between Cornel accounting for the humanist’s cherished ing which he intends to place all accept- West & ideals of truth and wisdom? ed ideas in the crucible of skepticism. D. Graham And that ‘placeholder’ morality was, Burnett cw: Well, there’s a sense in which you naturally, precisely conformal with quo- have to go back to Hamlet. One of the tidian ethical practices–the Jesuits at La things that is so distinctive about that Flèche had trained their pupil well! I had play is the sense you get that Shake- a student when I was teaching at Colum- speare has seen so much, and seen bia who described the moral provisoire as through so much, that his wisdom is in- Descartes’ “ethical bungee-cord”: be- deed loaded–that it’s deadly. And, sure fore leaping into the abyss of doubt he enough, we see the pile of corpses at the harnesses himself on a long, elastic teth- end, and we see the death-in-life in the er to the bridge of conventional, bour- characters themselves, and we know that geois Christian morals. without the right kind of handling the truth could go off in us, and it just might cw: It’s the perfect image. Now with all do us in. At that point–and this is really these warnings about truth and wisdom, what The Iceman Cometh is all about–the there’s clearly a sense in which Melville logic of paideia is self-destruction. is talking about his own text–The Con½- dence-Man–and telling us that his book dgb: I think I’m going to be sick . . . is explosive, and that if it’s not handled delicately, it could lead to a cynicism, cw: Now this is unsettling to humanists a misanthropy, and so forth. There’s a like myself, like you. We get a resonance mature way of wrestling with this dark- here with Melville, because if you really ness, and there’s an immature way of see too much, see through too much, the wrestling with this darkness. Where danger is not just the darkness but the in- does the maturity come from? Well, ability to get out of the darkness. Paul Tillich it’s the same issue as where we learn the used to always say, “You can’t talk about wisdom to deal wisely in our quest for truth without talking about the way to wisdom. There’s a paradox here. There’s truth; you can’t talk about wisdom with- a circularity here–a hermeneutical cir- out talking about the path to wisdom.” cle.

dgb: Suddenly I am more interested in dgb: I want to go back to the business talking about the way back . . . about the convergence of the logic of paideia and the logic of destruction. cw: You have to be wise in your quest This puts me in mind of a certain char- for wisdom. It sounds paradoxical, but acter who means a great deal to both of you do. us. Isn’t the intersection of paideia and death exactly the story of Jesus Christ? dgb: It makes me think of Descartes Let me press for a moment on the per- again. Since we sometimes forget that he sonal side of all this: you and I, Cornel, doesn’t simply embark on his scorched- we are believers, we are Christians. earth campaign of radical doubt. First, cw he sets up his morale provisoire, a ‘provi- : Oh, absolutely. Of a certain sort, a sional morality’ to which he will adhere self-styled Christianity, absolutely.

110 Dædalus Fall 2007 dgb: And I keep insisting that The Con- Yes, for the Christian “He is risen, hal- Metaphys- ics, mon- ½dence-Man is, fundamentally, a hopeful lelujah, He is risen.” But there are still ey & the text–and I think that is a reading condi- children in the gutter, eating garbage. Messiah tioned by my sense . . . So for me, reading The Con½dence-Man as a devotee of that ½rst-century Pales- cw: That you know where you have tinian Jew named Jesus–and my Chris- placed your bets . . . tian sensibility is profoundly Chekhov- ian–for me, reading this text, I am so dgb: Exactly. I read this book as a para- radically unhoused as a Christian. I am ble about the necessity of faith. When pushed to the wall by Melville’s Satur- someone comes into the room and says, day-sensibility. Which is to say, the cru- ‘Knowledge cannot save you,’ I say, ci½xion has taken place, catastrophe has ‘Amen, I know that story . . . ’ already occurred–and we’ve already noted the degree to which Melville is cw: You af½rm it, recognize it, and say an artist of catastrophe. Hope? I don’t yes. think that for him, whatever threadbare possibility there is–I don’t think there’s dgb: Cornel, I think that ultimately the anything like what we need to get to Sun- con½dence man is a messianic ½gure, day, to get to Easter. that the apotheosis of the con-man is a Now yes, Melville is wrestling with messiah. Whoever can make us believe the angel of meaning, he’s wrestling all the way to the end has saved us. That is with the angel of death the way Jacob what this book is about. Is that too sim- did–but he can’t get a new name, you pleminded? know? He’s a god-wrestler like Israel, but he remains a god-wrestler all the way cw: Do you know that wonderful line in down. Am I attracted to him? Yes. But T. S. Eliot’s introduction to Pascal’s Pen- I don’t see the object of faith there for sées, where he says the demon of doubt him. I don’t see the end and the aim– ought to be part of one’s faith, ought to the telos of faith. Or at least it isn’t ever be always already there? Now what does going to be what we Christians would that mean? Well, W. H. Auden draws want. His skepticism is too deep; for this distinction between the tragedy of him, that demon of doubt that Eliot fate and the tragedy of possibility. The talks about stands at the center. And this tragedy of fate is found in the Greeks– is what that Hawthorne letter was about, Sophocles, let’s say. And the tragedy of the one I quoted before: “He can neither possibility is very much the Christian believe nor be comfortable in his unbe- story, with Good Friday, the cruci½xion, lief.” Wittgenstein faced the same pre- and then that Beckett-like space of Sat- dicament, right? urday, waiting for God, waiting for Go- dgb dot, and then surprised by joy: Easter. : Let’s go back to Auden. You know But then on Monday, when the resur- the great line from his Christmas Orato- rection has taken place, the world is still rio: a hellish place, right? It’s not as if the Joseph, you have heard resurrection has made any real differ- What Mary says occurred; ence in the ‘City of Man.’ Yes, for Chris- Yes, it may be so. tians it pre½gures something to come. Is it likely? No.

Dædalus Fall 2007 111 Dialogue cw: Right! [Laughs] square on the very altar–to have it illu- between Cornel minate that threefold ½guration of our West & dgb: [Laughs] Well there is the beauty faith for a moment, and to have Melville D. Graham remind me that this is a kind of conjura- Burnett of it! Remember when Melville writes that the true ‘original character’ is like a tion, possibly the most spectacular con- “revolving Drummond light”–basically juration known to humanity. I’m not a stage spotlight? worried. After all, there we are enacting that faith in yet another conjuration: cw: The As You Like It formulation of the ‘This is my body . . . ’ It is? A ½tting sac- world in general . . . rament for the altar of such a faith. Per- fect! And anyway, where are you going dgb: Yes, perhaps–though the refer- to stand and tell me that it’s all ‘wrong’? ence is here mediated by technology in a strange way. But anyway, my point is cw: But it’s not that simple. Once you this: you know the way that every Cath- let loose a lie in the world, it can easily olic church organizes the sacred space take on a life and logic of its own. So of the altar in the center of a threefold that it may initially have been sustain- ½guration of the Holy Family: the cruci- ing or whatnot, but the canker works ½x behind, Mary usually stage right, Jo- gradually. The danger is that lies can be- seph stage left? come habit-forming. [Laughs] That’s part of what Melville is saying here too, cw: Yes. you see? dgb dgb: I feel as if the Drummond light of : Well now, after all, the truth has the con½dence man bathes this triptych been so much our friend–the truth has in its own distinctive glow. There could done us so many favors. If I sound a little hardly be a more fantastic con½dence acidic here, I am borrowing Melville’s game than the fundamental, foundation- acid. The truth? Oh, you want to play al Christian mythology: a story about with the truth, well hang on, I’ve got it parturition without sexual contact, a for you right here–Oh my! It’s a loaded story of God made man, a story of death gun and you don’t know what to do with that gives life. What we’ve got here is it . . . a project to look the most basic truths about human existence–logical, empiri- cw: If not delicately handled, you’re cal–right in the face, and then to deny right. I mean there’s a certain practical them flat. And it was carried off with wisdom that goes together with truth such aplomb, with such sublime con½- telling, but the same is true for lie telling. dence, that it succeeded in changing the Think of Plato’s “Noble Lie” . . . shape of the world and bringing radical novelty to the experience of the human dgb: Truth? Lies? The necessity of across seven continents and two thou- faith is what we are left with in this sand years. world. We have extinguished the epistemological questions–out they went cw: I hear you. with the solar lamp of the ½nal scene. All that business of proof and evidence dgb: Here’s the thing: it doesn’t scare doesn’t apply here. The tools of propo- me to have that Drummond light set up sitional calculus or the techniques for

112 Dædalus Fall 2007 making a taxonomy of the cryptograms cw: ok, but what about cell phones and Metaphys- ics, mon- –all that stuff is irrelevant now. We are bridges? I mean science and technology ey & the now talking about ½nal things . . . you have to acknowledge, right? Messiah cw: But on the other hand, Melville is dgb: The desire to transcend the human here to remind us that our attempt to condition can take several forms: we can extinguish metaphysical questions in a aspire to be angels, or we can aspire to move toward the existential may itself be machines. I prefer the former. be another illusion, another masquerade, another mode of evasion, another cw: Well, see, for somebody like my- kind of distraction. Because maybe– self, a Chekhovian Christian, I don’t maybe the truth is death. You hear what want to transcend the human at all. I I’m saying? Eternal death, eternal dark- want to revel in the human, acknowl- ness, absolute tragedy. You see what I edge the call for help, connect back to mean? the human sources that sustain me in space and time and human history. I dgb: You say the truth may be death, don’t think the transcendence of the but I’m holding the gun very, very care- human is a positive move in any direc- fully . . . tion. cw: Exactly. I hold it carefully with you, dgb: So interesting. But what about brother, absolutely. But intellectual in- Christian transcendence? What about tegrity requires pushing as far as you Sunday? can; you have to try to sort things out; you have to try to achieve some coher- cw: We wait for Sunday. See, you’ve ence, some consistency. got two levels here. Oh, this is very good stuff–this is powerful stuff! There are dgb: Really? two levels here: one is the Dostoyev- skian level, which is the inability to live cw: Oh yes, I think so. Christianity–the simple impracticabili- ty of real Christian life. I’m thinking of dgb: Well you go ahead. I don’t buy it. the Sermon on the Mount, yes, but also This is the game the folks play over in of the Sermon on the Plain, the sixth the philosophy department. They have chapter of Luke. I’m thinking of the made intellectual integrity into a little wrestling in The Brothers Karamazov. So ring, a little agonistic space where there we Christians, who have the audacity to is basically one rule: the law of noncon- say that the seemingly weakest force on tradiction. You can’t have A and not-A. earth–love–will ultimately transform And if they can maneuver you into that a world of hatred and bigotry and cruel- arena, they’ll kick your tail. ty and xenophobia and domination and oppression, we also seem to make the cw: But that agon is indispensable . . . best haters! And then, on top of that, here comes dgb: Really? It has nothing to do with Melville, saying, ‘But anyway, what dif- human life. To be human is A and not-A ference does the practical part make? –that is our fundamental condition. Since y’all are just enacting a masquerade

Dædalus Fall 2007 113 Dialogue anyway, with various kinds of masks use smoke and mirrors not just to sur- between Cornel that hide the incongruity and the dubi- vive catastrophe but to try to maintain a West & tability of this set of illusions that you call certain kind of sanity and dignity, a cer- D. Graham the Christian story.’ See, here is where tain kind of compassion, and a certain Burnett Melville pushes a Christian like me up kind of hope. And Melville sees that in against the wall. Dostoyevsky already his grotesque Negro cripple–who signi- worked the gut pretty hard, and here ½es all those Black folks in America, on comes Melville swinging for my head! the underside in America, always on the ropes, preserving a hope against hope, dgb: Oh, but Cornel I don’t buy it. but doing it in such a way that they’re You’re way too smooth! These guys not trying to trump somebody else’s op- haven’t got you against the wall . . . tions and alternatives. That’s why Black Guinea inspires me to try to be a blues cw: [Laughing] I’m swinging back, I’m man in the life of the mind, to play jazz like Ali on the ropes. I’m saying to my- in the world of ideas. And Melville? He’s self, you know, “Foreman’s not going to my agnostic comrade and democratic do me in . . . ” companion!

dgb: [Laughing] There’s no way! dgb: Cornel, I’ll tell you what, do you remember what I said about a lesson cw: That’s right, I’m coming off the of The Con½dence-Man being that you ropes! should never have a philosophical cham- pion or a prophetic hero to whom you dgb: To be sure! Because if there was have not owed money? Well here is the ever a character who had the moves, thing: Cornel, I am in need–I am in des- who had the silver tongue . . . perate need of a hundred dollars . . . cw cw: Who’s moving all the time . . . : [Laughing, taking a roll of bills from his vest-pocket] Oh, that is mar- dgb: Who can come back for Jesus–it velous! Lord! Oh, this is a good time, would be you! man! dgb cw: Ha! : [Laughing] Oh! My! Look at all that green! Oh! That is the money shot! Oh, that is too good! ok, we’ll stop, dgb: Let me just say it again: If, in the we’ve got to stop, stop the tape . . . end, as this book suggests, it’s smoke and mirrors all the way down, then I would want the smoke and the mirrors [Both continue laughing . . . ] in your hands, brother.

cw: But you have to understand, that grotesque Negro cripple with whom we started–he is part of my own heritage. Because what you actually have there is a jazz-like ½gure, an improvisational ½g- ure on the ropes, a ½gure who’s able to

114 Dædalus Fall 2007 known after the war as the Vienna- based ‘Nazi hunter.’ One of Sigmund Freud’s grandparents lived in Buczacz, as did many famous rabbis, nowadays largely forgotten by the non-Orthodox. Omer Bartov Several lesser-known Ukrainian writers and musicians, including the impressive on Eastern Galicia’s opera singer Solomiya Krushelnytska past & present (1872–1952), were born and raised either in Buczacz or in nearby villages. My own mother spent her childhood there in the 1920s and 1930s. Buczacz is located in what used to be called Eastern Galicia, the eastern part of the southern Polish territory annexed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1772 and made into the crownland of Galicia. Following World War I, Eastern Galicia Not many people in the United States, was reattached to the new Polish state. or for that matter, Europe, have heard It was taken over by the Soviet Union as of Buczacz (or Buchach), even though part of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in it was the hometown of Yosef Shmuel 1939, occupied by Nazi Germany after its Agnon (1888–1970), the Nobel Prize lau- attack on Russia in 1941, and then taken reate who recreated it in his novels and over again by the Soviet Union and an- stories as a microcosm of East European nexed to the Soviet Socialist Republic shtetl life; of Emanuel Ringelblum (1900 of Ukraine. Since 1991, the former East- –1944), the great historian of Polish- ern Galicia–whose largest city is L’viv Jewish relations and the founder of the (Lvov, Lwów, Lemberg)–has constitut- Oneg Shabbat archive, which preserves ed part of the western region of the inde- the records of the Warsaw Ghetto, next pendent Ukraine. to which he was eventually denounced Buczacz, like many other towns in and murdered; and of Simon Wiesen- Eastern Galicia, was a multiethnic so- thal (1908–2005), who came to be ciety. While the rural population was mainly Ukrainian (or Ruthenian, as it was previously called), the town dwell- Omer Bartov, a Fellow of the American Acad- ers were predominantly Polish and Jew- emy since 2005, is John P. Birkelund Distin- ish. The Jewish inhabitants of many of guished Professor of European History at Brown the small towns in this region, as well University. He is the author of numerous books, as in other parts of Eastern Europe and including “Hitler’s Army” (1991), “Murder in Western Russia, called these places shtet- Our Midst” (1996), “Mirrors of Destruction” lach (plural of shtetl), indicating that the (2000), “Germany’s War and the Holocaust” majority, or at least the plurality, of a (2003), and “The ‘Jew’ in Cinema” (2005). town’s population were Jews. But ethnic In the spring Bartov was a fellow at the American groups–arranged ½rst and foremost by Academy in Berlin. religion, and then from the latter part of the nineteenth century as different na- © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts tions, or ‘races,’ as well–had lived side & Sciences Dædalus Fall 2007 115 Note by by side in Eastern Galicia for some four The Polish government tried to colo- Omer hundred years. nize this land with ethnic Poles in order Bartov While there were periods of strife– to diminish the demographic prepon- both domestic and with external forces derance of the Ukrainian population. –and although we should not idealize But Ukrainian nationalism, which had their relations, these groups knew only evolved there under the more permissi- the reality of coexistence. Professions, ble Habsburg rule before the war, took neighborhoods, houses of worship, mar- a violent turn, sprouting terrorism with riages, and burials were all organized strong anti-Semitic and anti-Polish com- according to ethnic and religious lines, ponents. Independent Poland, especial- yet people of different groups interacted ly after the death of its dictator Józef Pil- constantly–in marketplaces and work- sudski, was also becoming increasingly places, in schools and public spaces, and anti-Semitic. The right-wing integral increasingly in military and state service. nationalists began to speak of a solution This reality began to change in the late to the ‘Jewish question,’ one that would nineteenth century, as people grew to entail the departure or removal of the associate religion and ethnicity, and to Jewish minority. The Jews, who consti- link ethnicity to nationality. This pro- tuted about 10 percent of Poland’s popu- duced the demand to exclude, or at least lation, were especially numerous and of- limit, the rights of ‘foreign’ groups in ten wretchedly poor in the eastern terri- the territories. In other words, national- tories. ism–to which tradition and religion The Soviet occupation of Eastern Ga- were grafted, and for which they acted licia (along with Volhynia and Western as a sanction–began to wreak havoc on Belorussia to its north) between Septem- these borderlands. Nationalism was, of ber 1939 and July 1941 greatly exacerbat- course, one of the main underlying caused the local tensions and dramatically es of World War I, and it exploded with destabilized the already fragile econom- pent-up fury once the old multinational ic, social, and political conditions there. empires that had ruled Europe’s eastern The Soviets tried rapidly to impose their borderland regions fell apart under the own political and economic principles. impact of the war. They ruthlessly deported Polish nation- In Eastern Galicia (at this time part of alists, political activists, professionals, a resurrected Polish state that had ceased and intellectuals; and they went after to exist for a time in the late eighteenth Zionists, other Jewish political and reli- century, when it was swallowed up by gious leaders, businessmen, and white- Austria, Russia, and Prussia), the seeth- collar workers. In the process, they also ing tensions between national minorities destroyed traditional Jewish communi- became dangerous both for the inhabi- ties. During the latter part of the Sovi- tants of the region and for Poland as a et occupation, which had initially pre- whole. Devastated in World War I, East- sented itself as promoting the cause of ern Galicia was renamed Little Eastern Ukrainian nationalism by facilitating Poland by its new rulers. It never com- uni½cation with Soviet Ukraine, the au- pletely recovered from the demographic thorities turned against anticommunist and economic repercussions of the bru- Ukrainian nationalists with a vengeance. tal Russian occupation, and the flight or When the Germans invaded these terri- deportation of hundreds of thousands of tories, they found a legacy of violence, its inhabitants, many of them Jews. rage, and fear they could exploit to their

116 Dædalus Fall 2007 advantage, at least as far as their own In this the Ukrainian nationalists suc- Eastern plans of genocide and colonization were ceeded: Ukraine became largely ethni- Galicia’s past & concerned. cally homogeneous in its western parts present Most important, even though the So- (in the east there were and still are large viets had deported Jews in dispropor- Russian concentrations). But it did not tionately higher numbers than either become independent until 1991. The na- Poles or Ukrainians, the local gentile tionalist insurgency against the renewed population had come to identify the Soviet occupation continued until the Jews with the Communists, and thus 1950s, with large-scale warfare between with their recent suffering by Soviet Ukrainian insurgents and Soviet security hands. In part, the fact that Jews were forces. Afterward, the region remained indeed proportionally overrepresented a high-security area and dif½cult to vis- among the Communists encouraged it; its economy was depressed and little this view; and in part, it also reflected changed there until a few years ago. the reality that Soviet rule had provided My original impulse in undertaking opportunities for Jews–young Jews es- research on Buczacz, in the heart of pecially–that the anti-Semitic Polish this region, was to try to understand state had blocked. The consequences of how one interethnic community– this perception were of course disastrous whose constituent groups had for cen- when the Nazis made the Jewish popula- turies managed a delicate, complex co- tion the main target of persecution and existence–was transformed into a com- murder. munity of genocide. In researching its In the brief three years of German history, I discovered the extraordinary occupation, 1941–1944, the Jewish pop- richness and variety of the historical ulation of Eastern Galicia was almost sources and the individual voices of this entirely wiped out. Of the more than community, whose population ranged ½ve hundred thousand Jewish inhabi- in the twentieth century from just ten tants, about half were deported to exter- thousand to ½fteen thousand people. mination camps and the other half mur- Searching for documents entailed using dered in or near their own towns, often archives in Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Aus- in sight and with the willing collabora- tria, Germany, Israel, the United States, tion of their gentile neighbors. Initially, and even France and Britain. The num- the Ukrainian militias and nationalists ber of languages I had to master in or- worked closely with the Germans, hop- der to put together the story of this place ing the new rulers would assist them in was also staggering. Moreover, I discov- creating an independent anticommunist ered that many of Buczacz’s citizens had Ukrainian state. Once they realized that recorded their testimonies, mostly of this would not happen, and that the Ger- suffering, exile, and murder. I collected mans were likely to lose the struggle hundreds of these Jewish, Polish, and against the Soviet Union, Ukrainian na- Ukrainian written and oral accounts tionalists turned against German rule. to recreate the complex fabric of a site Yet, simultaneously, they fought the ar- whose biography can only be told riving Soviet forces and carried out through many voices. widespread ethnic-cleansing operations Indeed, the schizophrenic nature of against the Polish population in hopes of the town’s biography is what makes it ending the war in an ethnically homoge- all the more intriguing. Buczacz, and neous Ukraine. many of its sister towns across the wide

Dædalus Fall 2007 117 swath of Europe’s eastern borderlands, offers several narratives of its past. Though they speak of the same place, each of these narratives is radically different, depending on the narrator’s ethnic-religious identity. For the Jews, a Harriet Ritvo town like Buczacz was a venerable old shtetl. For the Ukrainians, it was part of on the animal turn their ancestral lands, ruled and exploited by the Poles and their Jewish agents. For the Poles, it was a borderland they had civilized and protected from savage invaders from the east and the south, an outpost of European culture and Roman Catholic faith. While undertaking this research, I became fascinated as well with the current Ukrainian politics of memory, and how they relate to a past largely unknown Learned attention to animals is far from to the present population. My rumina- new. The scienti½c study of animals tions on this issue culminated in a book, stretches back at least to Aristotle. Live- which Princeton University Press is pub- stock have attracted the interest of lishing this fall, Erased: Vanishing Traces scholars with either a practical or theo- of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine, retical interest in agriculture. Critics of a journey in time and space into this art and literature have explicated animal cradle of Jewish mysticism, Ukrainian symbols and animal themes. Historians nationalism, and Polish Romanticism. Since its independence, Ukraine has been obliterating the last remnants of Harriet Ritvo, a Fellow of the American Acad- Jewish civilization from this region and emy since 2005, is Arthur J. Conner Professor replacing them with the symbols of a of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- resurgent local nationalism. The book nology. She is the author of “The Animal Estate: documents cemeteries turned into mar- The English and Other Creatures in the Victori- kets, synagogues made into garbage an Age” (1987) and “The Platypus and the Mer- dumps and sports halls, unmarked sites maid, and Other Figments of the Classifying of mass killings, and staircases made Imagination” (1997); the coeditor of “Macro- out of gravestones. Conversely, it also politics of Nineteenth-Century Literature: Na- reveals the rapid erection of statues, me- tionalism, Imperialism, Exoticism” (1991); and morials, and museums that not only cel- the editor of Charles Darwin’s “The Variation ebrate the Ukrainian nation but also glo- of Animals and Plants under Domestication” rify nationalist leaders who collaborated (1998). She has a forthcoming book, “The Dawn with the Nazis in the murder of the Jews. of Green: Manchester, Thirlmere, and the Victo- The book includes sixty out of hundreds rian Environment,” to be published by the Univer- of photographs I took in order to record sity of Chicago Press. this second destruction as well as the rapidly vanishing remnants of a world © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts that is no more. & Sciences

118 Dædalus Fall 2007 swath of Europe’s eastern borderlands, offers several narratives of its past. Though they speak of the same place, each of these narratives is radically different, depending on the narrator’s ethnic-religious identity. For the Jews, a Harriet Ritvo town like Buczacz was a venerable old shtetl. For the Ukrainians, it was part of on the animal turn their ancestral lands, ruled and exploited by the Poles and their Jewish agents. For the Poles, it was a borderland they had civilized and protected from savage invaders from the east and the south, an outpost of European culture and Roman Catholic faith. While undertaking this research, I became fascinated as well with the current Ukrainian politics of memory, and how they relate to a past largely unknown Learned attention to animals is far from to the present population. My rumina- new. The scienti½c study of animals tions on this issue culminated in a book, stretches back at least to Aristotle. Live- which Princeton University Press is pub- stock have attracted the interest of lishing this fall, Erased: Vanishing Traces scholars with either a practical or theo- of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine, retical interest in agriculture. Critics of a journey in time and space into this art and literature have explicated animal cradle of Jewish mysticism, Ukrainian symbols and animal themes. Historians nationalism, and Polish Romanticism. Since its independence, Ukraine has been obliterating the last remnants of Harriet Ritvo, a Fellow of the American Acad- Jewish civilization from this region and emy since 2005, is Arthur J. Conner Professor replacing them with the symbols of a of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- resurgent local nationalism. The book nology. She is the author of “The Animal Estate: documents cemeteries turned into mar- The English and Other Creatures in the Victori- kets, synagogues made into garbage an Age” (1987) and “The Platypus and the Mer- dumps and sports halls, unmarked sites maid, and Other Figments of the Classifying of mass killings, and staircases made Imagination” (1997); the coeditor of “Macro- out of gravestones. Conversely, it also politics of Nineteenth-Century Literature: Na- reveals the rapid erection of statues, me- tionalism, Imperialism, Exoticism” (1991); and morials, and museums that not only cel- the editor of Charles Darwin’s “The Variation ebrate the Ukrainian nation but also glo- of Animals and Plants under Domestication” rify nationalist leaders who collaborated (1998). She has a forthcoming book, “The Dawn with the Nazis in the murder of the Jews. of Green: Manchester, Thirlmere, and the Victo- The book includes sixty out of hundreds rian Environment,” to be published by the Univer- of photographs I took in order to record sity of Chicago Press. this second destruction as well as the rapidly vanishing remnants of a world © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts that is no more. & Sciences

118 Dædalus Fall 2007 have chronicled important animal-relat- uncomfortable conjunction of similari- The ani- ed institutions, from humane societies ty and otherness. The ½rst sense, illus- mal turn to zoos. People distinguished in their trated with learned examples ranging association with animals, whether as from John de Trevisa to Thomas Henry breeders or hunters or scientists, have Huxley, includes all living things that are had their biographers–as have some not plants. The second sense, illustrated animals distinguished in their own right, mostly with literary quotations, is less from Jumbo to Seabiscuit. inclusive and more popular: “In com- Nevertheless, during the last several mon usage: one of the lower animals; decades, animals have emerged as a a brute, or beast, as distinguished from more frequent focus of scholarship in man.” the humanities and social sciences, as No matter how careful their de½ni- quanti½ed in published books and ar- tions or how forceful their assertions, ticles, conference presentations, new scholars are inevitably influenced by societies, and new journals. With this the common usage of the terms they change in degree has come a potential deploy, as well as by their more rare½ed change in kind. As it has expanded the and specialized senses. With regard to range of possible research topics in a the study of animals, this often means number of disciplines, the animal turn that explicit claims of unity (humans has also suggested new relationships be- are animals) paradoxically work to rein- tween scholars and their subjects, and force the human-animal boundary they new understandings of the role of ani- are intended to dissolve. That is to say, mals in the past and at present. such claims incorporate a grudging ac- Most scholars who specialize in the knowledgment that this boundary is study of animals believe that human widely recognized and powerfully influ- beings fall within that category. This is ential. Why else would it be continually as true of scientists, who locate Homo necessary to deny its validity or remind sapiens within the primate order (along ourselves of its arbitrariness? Further, with lemurs, monkeys, and other apes), like clichéd metaphors that turn out to as it is of humanists (whether they are be only half-dead, such claims may bring posthumanist or not), who claim kin- buried assumptions into the full light of dred in footnotes or parentheses. (Here consciousness, thus inspiring articulate is my own declaration: I share the view contradiction. Some scholars within the that people are animals.) emergent ½eld of animal studies call But, often, such assertions seem defen- themselves ‘posthumanists,’ but there is sive, even strident. Indeed, the recurrent a sense in which that label embodies the need to make them reveals persistent same kind of wishful thinking that the semantic and cultural tension, as does term ‘late capitalism’ does. the reluctance of many taxonomists to The story does not end with this par- relinquish the distinction between the adox, however. Cognitive dissonance family Pongidae, including bonobos, seems to be among the least trouble- chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, some of human mental conditions. As- and the more exclusive family Homini- sertions of extreme difference–for ex- dae, reserved for australopithecines and ample, that animals lack souls, intelli- humans. gence, or even feeling–have traditional- The entry for ‘animal’ in the Oxford ly coexisted with implicit acknowledg- English Dictionary similarly distills the ments of similarity, even identity. People

Dædalus Fall 2007 119 Note by who would resist the notion of shared attractions, worried that they were po- Harriet phylogeny have often embraced meta- tential sites of unedifying behavior on Ritvo phorical kinship. Thus the apparatus of the part of both the exhibited creatures animal pedigree emerged in Britain–not (so that the feeding of live prey to carni- coincidentally–at about the same time vores was prohibited) and the raucous as published records of elite human an- human observers (so that the admission cestral lines, distilled in volumes often of the lower classes into zoos was initial- referred to as ‘stud books.’ With regard ly controversial). The pages of many nat- to human participation, the animal-ori- ural history books and travel accounts ented books were less restrictive. Breed- contained still more suggestive evidence ers and fanciers of relatively undistin- of closeness: reports, speculative but guished personal extraction could bask compelling, of the sexual interest of wild in the genealogical glow of their chattels. apes in human females. Sometimes such Contemporary examples of parallel slip- resonances were ½gured as metonymy, page abound, as the movie Best in Show, emphasizing similarity, and sometimes a satiric look at high-end canine compe- they were ½gured as metaphor, empha- tition, demonstrated several years ago, sizing difference. But whether the ani- and as the marathon telecasts of the mal analogue was wild or domesticated, Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show primate or ungulate or carnivore, conti- display annually. nuity and discontinuity were inextrica- Understandings of animal behavior bly intertwined. have been similarly inconsistent. In the As always, some animals were more nineteenth century, for example, as now, equal than others. The likeliest targets some pets really did belong to human of unconscious identi½cation and pro- families in all but the narrowest biologi- jection were the animals who were most cal sense. At the other end of the affec- like people, either because they looked tive scale, the relationships between like people or because they were mem- some working animals and their owners bers (whether underprivileged or hyper- strongly resembled the relationships be- privileged) of the same society. Animals tween some human laborers and their outside these overlapping circles of fa- employers. The docility and loyal devo- miliarity were much less likely potential tion of dogs and horses were praised in surrogates. They might serve as the sub- terms equally applicable to human ser- jects of scienti½c study and amateur fas- vants. Such behavior could also be ap- cination, but with a few exceptions–the preciatively characterized as ‘sagacity’ social insects (ants and bees) whose eco- or even ‘intelligence.’ nomic organizations seemed to replicate The intellectual powers of the animals those of people, or the aquatic creatures anatomically closest to humans inspired that, in the spirit of “ontogeny recapitu- more complex responses, but the con- lates phylogeny,” could be seen to ½gure ventions for displaying apes and mon- in prenatal human development as well keys unambiguously emphasized resem- as in remote human ancestry–the inter- blance. Zoo apes and sideshow monkeys est was of a different kind. were dressed in jackets and dresses; ate Indeed, it was so different that it from utensils and drank from cups; and brings the use of the blanket term ‘ani- appeared to enjoy cigarettes and illus- mal’ to cover them all into question. trated books. The guardians of public This expansive and promiscuous usage morality kept a watchful eye on animal epitomizes a serious dif½culty that arises

120 Dædalus Fall 2007 when we abrogate the conventional di- that if rights were granted to women, The ani- chotomy between humans and other farmyard animals would be next in line.) mal turn animals: the elimination of one bound- The most sweepingly inclusive (or ary seems to require the establishment powerfully reductive) categories thus of another or others, although the loca- make more sense for scientists than they tion of replacement boundaries is equal- do for scholars in the humanities and ly problematic. If no obvious gap can be social sciences. Biology has offered in- discerned between most kinds of ani- creasingly detailed and fascinating ac- mals and those apparently closest to counts of the genetic similarities that them, large gaps emerge when very dis- connect the smallest, simplest animals similar animals are juxtaposed. The with the largest and most complex– claim that people are like cats or beavers and, indeed, that unify all the eukary- or hippopotami (that they belong in the otes, whether animal, plant, or fungus. same category with those kinds of crea- But such insights have had little impact tures) is not the same as the claim that on everyday understanding and behav- they are like jelly½sh or fleas or worms. ior at present, and their retroactive in- Both claims are interesting, and both fluence is still more limited. seem true to me, but they make sense in The study of human culture, whether different contexts. contemporary or historical, requires a Confusion about the appropriate con- focus that is at once larger and smaller. text–or intentional misunderstanding For understanding the relationships of which sense of ‘animal’ is being in- between people and other animals, the voked–can lead to the kind of reductio fact of similarity is important, but so ad absurdum that often undermines ani- also is the extent of similarity, which mal advocacy, at least when animal ad- tends to be a matter of opinion or per- vocates are not preaching to the choir. It ception. It varies from place to place is relatively easy to explain why pigs and and from time to time. For example, al- dogs should receive the same legal and though the general outline of mam- moral consideration, even if it is much malian taxonomy has remained reason- less easy to ensure that they actually re- ably constant for several centuries, An- ceive it. Resistance to acknowledging glophones tend to feel closer to gorillas suine claims to humane treatment tends and chimpanzees now than they did in to rest on pragmatic (mostly economic) the late nineteenth century. Meanwhile, grounds. the once-common notion that dogs, or But when, under the general ‘animal’ even horses, might bear a closer resem- rubric, claims to consideration are made blance to people in important ways has on behalf of creatures that share fewer largely disappeared. human capacities, resistance becomes Thus, as the animal turn breaks new stronger and more principled. If defend- ground, it also revisits perpetually unan- ed in the same terms as those of our fel- swered questions. Nor are such ques- low mammals (or even our fellow verte- tions con½ned to the realm of scholar- brates), the rights of lobsters, oysters, or ship. The standing of animals, even termites offer ready targets for ridicule. those closest to us, still presents vexed (Of course, this is a historically speci½c moral, legal, and political issues, and the observation. Two centuries ago Mary range of possible positions is not very Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights different from the range that was avail- of Women was travestied on the grounds able to Victorians. Within my own expe-

Dædalus Fall 2007 121 Note by rience as a scholar, the study of animals Harriet Ritvo has become more respectable and more popular in many disciplines of the humanities and social sciences, but it is far from the recognized core of any of them. It remains marginal in most disciplines, and (not the same thing) it is often on the borderline between disciplines. This awkward location or set of locations is, however, the source of much of its appeal and power. Its very marginality al- lows the study of animals to challenge settled assumptions and relationships– to re-raise the largest issues–both within the community of scholars and in the larger society to which they and their subjects belong.

122 Dædalus Fall 2007 President Emilio Bizzi Chief Executive Of½cer Leslie C. Berlowitz Chair of the Academy Trust and Vice President Louis W. Cabot Treasurer John S. Reed Secretary Jerrold Meinwald Editor Steven Marcus Librarian Robert C. Post Vice President, Midwest John Katzenellenbogen Vice President, West Jesse H. Choper

Dædalus Board of Editors Committee Steven Marcus, Chair, Joyce Appleby, Russell Banks, Stanley Hoffmann, Donald Kennedy, Martha C. Nussbaum, Neil J. Smelser, Rosanna Warren, Steven Weinberg; ex of½cio: Emilio Bizzi, Leslie C. Berlowitz

Committee on Publications Jerome Kagan, Chair, Jesse H. Choper, Denis Donoghue, Jerrold Meinwald; ex of½cio: Emilio Bizzi, Steven Marcus, Leslie C. Berlowitz Inside back cover: A path on the Fedor (or Fe- dir) Hill, overlooking the town of Buczacz (Buchach), in Eastern Galicia, Ukraine. Along this path, winding its way up from the town to the hill, several thousand Jewish inhabitants of the town were led by the Germans and their Ukrainian collaborators to mass execution sites and shot in front of pre-dug mass graves, mostly in the years 1942–1943. During the years of German occupation, the Jewish population of Eastern Galicia was almost entirely wiped out. See Omer Bartov on Eastern Galicia’s past & present, pages 115–118: “Buczacz, and many of its sister towns across the wide swath of Eu- rope’s eastern borderlands, offers several narratives of its past. Though they speak of the same place, each of these narratives is radically different, depending on the narrator’s ethnic- religious identity.” Photo Credit: Omer Bartov.

Margaret Schabas, and Philip Tetlock & Michael Oppenheimer Fall 2007:onthepublicinterest on the E. J. Dionne Jr. Why the public interest matters now 5 on cosmopolitanism Martha C. Nussbaum, Margaret C. Jacob, A. A. Long, Pheng Cheah, public interest William A. Galston An old debate renewed 10 Darrin McMahon, Helena Rosenblatt, Samuel Scheffler, Arjun Adam Wolfson From James Madison to Abraham Lincoln 20 Appadurai, Rogers Smith, Peter Brooks, and Craig Calhoun Nathan Glazer Reflections on an elusive goal 30 plus poetry by Ted Richer, C. D. Wright &c.; ½ction by Chris Abani, Jagdish Bhagwati Some implications for economic policy 37 Wesley Brown, Alix Ohlin &c.; and notes by Phyllis Coley, Don Gary Hart The commonwealth ideal 45 Harrán, Richard Kraut, Ian Ayres &c. Christine Todd Whitman Governing in the public interest: then & now 51 Robert N. Bellah Ethical politics: reality or illusion? 59 Amy Gutmann The dangers of extremist rhetoric 70 Lance Taylor Economists & the wealth of nations 79

poetry Molly McQuade Spring’s So Sad, We Want to Know Why 88

½ction Mary Gordon Dilly 89

dialogue Cornel West & D. Graham Burnett On Melville’s The Con½dence-Man 101

notes Omer Bartov on Eastern Galicia’s past & present 115 Harriet Ritvo on the animal turn 118

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