Thank God America Isn't Like Europe -- Yet
By Charles Murray
Sunday, March 22, 2009; B02
Do we want the United States to be like Europe?
The European model has worked in many ways. I am delighted whenever I get a chance to go to Stockholm or Amsterdam, not to mention Rome or Paris. There's a lot to like -- a lot to love -- about day-to-day life in Europe. But I argue that the answer to this question is "no." Not for economic reasons. I want to focus on another problem with the European model: namely, that it drains too much of the life from life.
The stuff of life -- the elemental events surrounding birth, death, raising children, fulfilling one's personal potential, dealing with adversity, intimate relationships -- occurs within just four institutions: family, community, vocation and faith. Seen in this light, the goal of social policy is to ensure that those institutions are robust and vital. The European model doesn't do that. It enfeebles every single one of them.
Drive through rural Sweden, as I did a few years ago. In every town was a beautiful Lutheran church, freshly painted, on meticulously tended grounds, all subsidized by the Swedish government. And the churches are empty. Including on Sundays. The nations of Scandinavia and Western Europe pride themselves on their "child-friendly" policies, providing generous child allowances, free day-care centers and long maternity leaves. Those same countries have fertility rates far below replacement and plunging marriage rates. They are countries where jobs are most carefully protected by government regulation and mandated benefits are most lavish. And with only a few exceptions, they are countries where work is most often seen as a necessary evil, and where the proportions of people who say they love their jobs are the lowest.
Call it the Europe Syndrome. Last April I had occasion to speak in Zurich, where I made some of these same points. Afterward, a few of the 20-something members of the audience came up and said plainly that the phrase "a life well-lived" did not have meaning for them. They were having a great time with their current sex partner and new BMW and the vacation home in Majorca, and they saw no voids in their lives that needed filling.
It was fascinating to hear it said to my face, but not surprising. It conformed to both journalistic and scholarly accounts of a spreading European mentality that goes something like this: Human beings are a collection of chemicals that activate and, after a period of time, deactivate. The purpose of life is to while away the intervening time as pleasantly as possible.
If that's the purpose of life, then work is not a vocation, but something that interferes with the higher good of leisure. If that's the purpose of life, why have a child, when children are so much trouble? If that's the purpose of life, why spend it worrying about neighbors? If that's the purpose of life, what could possibly be the attraction of a religion that says otherwise?
I stand in awe of Europe's past. Which makes Europe's present all the more dispiriting. And should make it something that concentrates our minds wonderfully, for every element of the Europe Syndrome is infiltrating American life as well. The European model provides the intellectual framework for the social policies of the Democratic Party, and it faces no credible opposition from Republican politicians.
Yet not only is the European model inimical to human flourishing, I predict that 21st-century science is going to explain why. A tidal change in our scientific understanding of what makes humans tick is coming, and it will spill over into every crevice of political and cultural life. As Harvard's Edward O. Wilson argues in his book "Consilience," the social sciences are increasingly going to be shaped by the findings of science. It's already happening. Whether it's psychologists discovering how fetal testosterone affects sex differences in children's behavior or geneticists using haplotypes to differentiate the Dutch from the Italians, the hard sciences are encroaching on questions of race, class and gender that have been at the center of modern social science. And the tendency of the findings lets us predict with some confidence the broad outlines of what the future will bring.
Two premises about human beings are at the heart of the social democratic agenda: what I label "the equality premise" and "the New Man premise." The equality premise says that, in a fair society, different groups of people -- men and women, blacks and whites, straights and gays -- will naturally have the same distributions of outcomes in life -- the same mean income, the same mean educational attainment, the same proportions who become janitors and who become CEOs. When that doesn't happen, it is because of bad human behavior and an unfair society. Much of the Democratic Party's proposed domestic legislation assumes that this is true.
I'm confident that within a decade, the weight of the new scientific findings will force the left to abandon the equality premise. But if social policy cannot be built on the premise that group differences must be eliminated, what can it be built upon? It can be built upon the premise that used to be part of the warp and woof of American idealism: People must be treated as individuals. The success of social policy is to be measured not by equality of outcomes for groups, but by the freedom of individuals, acting upon their personal abilities, aspirations and values, to seek the kind of life that best suits them.
The second tendency of the new findings of biology will be to show that the New Man premise -- which says that human beings are malleable through the right government interventions -- is nonsense. Human nature tightly constrains what is politically or culturally possible. More than that, the new findings will confirm that human beings are pretty much the way that wise observers have thought for thousands of years.
The effects on the policy debate will be sweeping. Let me give you a specific example. For many years, I have been among those who argue that the growth in births to unmarried women has been a social catastrophe -- the single most important force behind the growth of the underclass. But while other scholars and I have been able to prove that other family structures have not worked as well as the traditional family, I cannot prove that alternatives could not work as well, and so the social democrats keep coming up with the next new program that will compensate for the absence of fathers.
Over the next few decades, advances in evolutionary psychology are going to be conjoined with advances in genetic understanding, and I predict that they will lead to a scientific consensus that goes something like this: There are genetic reasons why boys who grow up in neighborhoods without married fathers tend to reach adolescence unsocialized to norms of behavior that they will need to stay out of prison and hold jobs. We will still be able to acknowledge that many single women do a wonderful job of raising their children. But social democrats will have to acknowledge that the traditional family plays a special, indispensable role in human flourishing and that social policy must be based on that truth.
For some years a metaphor has been stuck in my mind: The 20th century was the adolescence of Homo sapiens. Nineteenth-century science, from Darwin to Freud, offered a series of body blows to ways of thinking about human life that had prevailed since the dawn of civilization. Humans, just like adolescents, were deprived of some of the comforting simplicities of childhood and exposed to more complex knowledge about the world. And 20th-century intellectuals reacted precisely the way adolescents react when they think they have discovered that Mom and Dad are hopelessly out of date. It was as if they thought that if Darwin was right about evolution, then Aquinas was no longer worth reading; that if Freud was right about the unconscious mind, then the Nicomachean Ethics had nothing to teach us.
The nice thing about adolescence is that it is temporary, and when it passes, people discover that their parents were smarter than they thought. I think that may be happening with the advent of the new century. All of us who deal in social policy will be thinking less like adolescents, entranced with the most titillating new idea, and more like grown-ups. But that will not stop America's slide toward the European model. For that, there must be a kind of political Great Awakening among America's elites. They will have to ask themselves how much they value what has made America exceptional, and what they are willing to do to preserve it.
The trouble is that American elites of all political stripes have increasingly withdrawn to gated communities -- literally or figuratively -- where they never interact at an intimate level with people not of their own socioeconomic class. Over the last half-century, the new generation of elites have increasingly spent their entire lives in the upper-middle-class bubble, never having seen a factory floor, let alone worked on one, never having gone to a grocery store and bought the cheap ketchup instead of the expensive ketchup to meet a budget, and never having had a close friend who hadn't gotten at least 600 on her verbal SAT.
America's elites must once again fall in love with what makes America different. The drift toward the European model can be stopped only when we are all talking again about why America is exceptional, and why it is so important that America remain exceptional. That requires once again seeing the American project for what it is: a different way for people to live together, unique among the nations of the earth, and immeasurably precious.
Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. This essay is adapted from his 2009 Irving Kristol Lecture.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/20/AR2009032001779_pf.html
In CA, only 8% of the billions coming from the Obama 'stimulus' bill is going to be spent on infrastructure. Jobs and such.
The rest will cover the state's deficit in entitlement spending, this year. Next year the dems who run the state here ( and who have run it into the ground) plan on the economy recovering, I guess.
A (NOT SO) Lone Voice wrote:Quote:In CA, only 8% of the billions coming from the Obama 'stimulus' bill is going to be spent on infrastructure. Jobs and such.
The rest will cover the state's deficit in entitlement spending, this year. Next year the dems who run the state here ( and who have run it into the ground) plan on the economy recovering, I guess.
It is obvious that the present administration wants to increase socialism in government. Of further Note is SC governor Mark Sanford special request to just use the money to pay down the state's debt instead of increasing its future entitlement obligations. Sanford was refused this option by Obama himself.
JM
Communists, Socialist...same thing as far as I'm concerned, both, in practice, want to achieve the subjugation of the individual for the promised EUtopia of cradle to grave protection from both noxious stimuli and prosperity/higher living standards. Both neglect and discourage individual achievement by seeking the averaging affect of "leveling playing fields". They are the T-ball to capitalism's Baseball.
http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=socialism&x=25&y=9
Main Entry: so·cial·ism
...
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): -s
1 : any of various theories or social and political movements advocating or aiming at collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and control of the distribution of goods: as a : FOURIERISM b : GUILD SOCIALISM c : MARXISM d : OWENISM
2 a : a system or condition of society or group living in which there is no private property <trace the remains of pure socialism that marked the first phase of the Christian community -- W.E.H.Lecky> -- compare INDIVIDUALISM b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state -- compare CAPITALISM, LIBERALISM c : a stage of society that in Marxist theory is transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and payments to individuals according to their work
22.03.2009
Charles Murray's Miserable, Happy Americans
Charles Murray's recent Irving Kristol lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, titled "The Europe Syndrome and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism," has been extravagantly praised by conservatives. From these accounts, I figured that Murray had something new or interesting or thoughtful to say about the question of American exceptionalism or the problems confronting contemporary Europe.
But no. What Murray offers in his lecture is just a slight variation on good old-fashioned Donner Party Conservatism.
For those unfamiliar with the delightful appellation, coined by blogger John Holbo in 2003, it refers to the brand of conservative thinking that defends America's relatively minimal welfare state and anemic economic regulations on the grounds that it's good for people to have to struggle and suffer to get by -- just like those plucky, entrepreneurial pioneers who resorted to cannibalism to avoid starvation while trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains back in the winter of 1846-1847. For some Donner Party Conservatives, struggle and suffering are good because they call forth and demand great acts of virtue, which serves to replenish the ever-diminishing stockpile of "moral capital" that our nation has inherited from its (pre-liberal) past. Murray himself argues this point at length. But he also claims that struggle and suffering are good because they are a necessary condition of human happiness.
And that sets up a familiar conservative dichotomy. On one side is Europe, filled with its cushy welfare states, where tame and timid hedonists treat life as a vacation, never contemplating, let alone striving to attain, greatness. They live, but they have no concept of what it means to "live well," meaning to live for the sake of something larger or higher than themselves -- something worth sacrificing for, like children, or dying for, like a noble cause. Hence their plummeting fertility rates and aversion to military conflict.
But that's not all. Because genuine happiness, for Murray, requires spending one's life striving to overcome an endless series of challenges and obstacles, the lavish European safety net ensures that individual Europeans will never experience spiritual contentment or satisfaction. The assumption seems to be that a life of leisure -- or at least a life with open access to health care, quality child care, generous unemployment insurance, and 4 - 6 weeks of guaranteed vacation time a year -- will be an unhappy one. (It doesn't sound half-bad to me, but I'm a Euro-loving liberal.)
Luckily, though, there is the American alternative (at least until Barack Obama gets through with us). Unlike coddled Europeans, Americans face the constant possibility of personal economic catastrophe. They work their lives away just to make ends meet, never knowing if they'll be rewarded for their efforts by being fired by their employer or impoverished by medical bills after a life-threatening illness. And that constant insecurity is what opens up the possibility of genuine happiness for them, because if they manage to survive, let alone thrive, they'll know that they did it on their own, without the help of the state, through heroic acts of self-reliance. This ideology -- equal parts Christian masochism, Emersonian individualism, and Nietzschean striving -- forms the core of American exceptionalism, according to Murray.
Even if we grant that there's some validity to Murray's core psychological assumption -- that human happiness is linked to the sense of self-worth that comes from overcoming obstacles -- Murray's arguments about the preconditions of happiness in Europe and America are riddled with holes.
Let's start with a few simple questions. Does it really make sense to assume that European welfare states so thoroughly insulate individuals from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that they no longer suffer or contend with difficulties in life? Don't individual Germans and Italians and Swedes still endure heartbreak and personal disappointments and defeats? Don't Danes and Frenchmen and Spaniards still struggle with disease and death? And if so, isn't happiness as possible for them as it is for Americans? (Come to think of it, shouldn't Americans be envious that European governments impose so many burdensome regulations on business, since those formidable obstacles to success must increase the likelihood that successful European entrepreneurs will get to enjoy happiness? But I digress. . . .)
On the other hand, isn't it likewise the case that plenty of Americans, very much including the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, enjoy pleasant, leisured lives that are pretty thoroughly insulated from struggle and suffering, at least by the standards that have prevailed for most of human history? Judged by these standards, contemporary Europeans and Americans -- with their abundant food and clothing, iPods and air travel, MRIs and antibiotics -- differ hardly at all. If Europeans are unusually discontented, then it seems Americans should be, too -- at least in comparison with all those happy, struggling peasants of the pre-modern world.
But those are just the obvious objections to Murray's argument. The more fundamental ones follow from reflecting on the very real economic and cultural differences that distinguish Europe and America. The U.S., for example, has a lot more poor people than most European countries, and the American poor tend to be poorer than their European counterparts, while also lacking access to quality health care, child care, and other forms of social support. At the same time, the gap between the rich and poor in the United States is much greater than it is in Europe.
Libertarian-minded conservatives defend these troubling facts in a number of ways. The most doctrinaire say that the principle of individual freedom should be inviolable, regardless of the inegalitarian consequences. More pragmatic libertarians argue that America's comparatively freer market leads on average to higher rates of growth and lower rates unemployment than Europe, and that these are greater social goods than equality. And then there are those who claim that Americans as a whole benefit in innumerable ways from policies that encourage economic vitality and foster a culture of entrepreneurial creativity. All of these arguments are questionable. But at least they have the virtue of recognizing that economic and social policy involves trade-offs among competing goods.
By contrast, Donner Party Conservatives like Murray deny that any trade-offs are required -- and that's what makes their ideology so easy, so delusional, and so pernicious. Yes, they say, the American approach to economic and social policy makes life much harder for the poor, but far from being cruel, heartless, or selfish -- or an unfortunate consequence of protecting freedom, fostering growth, or encouraging economic vitality -- the added burden on the poor should actually be viewed as a benefit. After all, if quality health care and child care were more widely available, if public transportation were more reliable and affordable, if schools and other social services were more effective -- if, in a word, our society devoted a bit more of its vast resources to alleviating the struggles of the poor -- then we would be depriving them of the possibility of happiness. How thoughtful and generous of us not to alleviate their suffering!
And who are the most generous of all? Why the conservatives who believe we should spend even less on the poor than we already do! No wonder NRO's The Corner was buzzing with praise for Murray's lecture, which tells the right exactly what it most wants to hear: that doing nothing is the greatest charity of all.
Posted: Sunday, March 22, 2009 9:57 PM with 2 comment(s)
:"I now understand why conservatives always come down on the wrong side of every issue. They were born that way."
The reality is that elements of all are a part of our society and even though you damn things like socialism, you can't deny how elements of socialism contribute to the success of our society.
Public Schools
VA Hospitals
Police
Firefighters
etc
:"I don't trust either the Democrats or Republicans with that kind of power which is why I hope enough of us who recognize the virtue in MACean principles will retain enough voice to be heard."
when viewed honestly and objectively
http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=socialism&x=20&y=11
Main Entry: so·cial·ism
...
Function: noun
...
1 : any of various theories or social and political movements advocating or aiming at collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and control of the distribution of goods: as a : FOURIERISM b : GUILD SOCIALISM c : MARXISM d : OWENISM
2 a : a system or condition of society or group living in which there is no private property <trace the remains of pure socialism that marked the first phase of the Christian community -- W.E.H.Lecky> -- compare INDIVIDUALISM
b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state -- compare CAPITALISM, LIBERALISM c : a stage of society that in Marxist theory is transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and payments to individuals according to their work
http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=fascism&x=24&y=9
Main Entry: fas·cism
...
Function: noun
...
1 often capitalized : the principles of the Fascisti; also : the movement or governmental regime embodying their principles
2 a : any program for setting up a centralized autocratic national regime with severely nationalistic policies, exercising regimentation of industry, commerce, and finance, rigid censorship, and forcible suppression of opposition b : any tendency toward or actual exercise of severe autocratic or dictatorial control (as over others within an organization) <the nascent fascism of a detective who is not content merely to do his duty -- George Nobbe> <early instances of army fascism and brutality -- J.W.Aldridge> <a kind of personal fascism, a dictatorship of the ego over the more generous elements of the soul -- Edmond Taylor>
http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=constitutionalism&x=22&y=8
Main Entry: con·sti·tu·tion·al·ism
...
Function: noun
...
1 : the doctrine or system of government in which the governing power is limited by enforceable rules of law and concentration of power is prevented by various checks and balances so that the basic rights of individuals and groups are protected
2 : adherence to the principles of constitutionalism
