Saturday, September 16, 2017

The Golden Mean Has Disappeared



Rather than practising the fine art of political compromise, Lawrence Martin writes, Americans are heading to the extremes:

It was thought that Mr. Sanders was boneyard-bound politically after his primaries' insurgency was snuffed out by Hillary Clinton. It was thought Mr. Bannon's banishment from Donald Trump's inner sanctum might spell the end of his remarkable Svengali-like turn on the Republican stage.
But the two men are still defining or, if you will, redefining U.S. politics. As in: far right, far left, goodbye middle.

The rhetoric on both sides gets shriller as both parties are hollowed out:

Mr. Bannon, who views most traditional Republicans with "contempt, total and complete contempt," vowed to fight in nomination battles to take down entrenched party members who don't adhere to Mr. Trump's wall-building nationalist, populist pitch.

By training their sights on their own Republican flock, Mr. Trump and Mr. Bannon could shatter the party enough to help the Democrats roar back to power. The Trump/Bannon nativist preachings – that the country went to hell in a hand basket because of such things as rotten trade agreements – increasingly has the look of sophistry.

The argument is that the low 4.4-per-cent unemployment rate doesn't reflect the misery of a citizenry who haven't shared in the economic upturn of recent years. But a U.S. Census Bureau report this week said in fact the recovery was distributing benefits more broadly, that the median household income jumped 3.2 per cent after inflation last year, that poverty numbers are declining. Meanwhile, interest rates are low, inflation is low and the stock market is high.

Meanwhile, Sanders is driving wedges into his own party: 

While the Sanders ideal of universal coverage is laudable, it poses many risks for the party. Many Democrats fear it will hurt them in swing states in the midterm elections. For Republicans, the call for socialized medicine is music to the ears. One of the few things they still agree on is the need for tax cuts; the Sanders plan would hike the tax burden significantly.

The Republicans, with Senator Lindsey Graham heading the effort, are making a last-ditch attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare. They can now use the Sanders socialized-medicine plank as a weapon. If we don't act on Obamacare, they can argue, look what happens next. You'll feel the Bern. The socialist's tax burn.

The Greeks preached the concept of the golden mean. As time went on, they found it increasingly hard to practise it. The same phenomenon seems to be happening in the United States. 

Image: slideplayer


11 comments:

Lorne said...

The fact that extremism seems to be the rule in American politics these days, Owen, suggests two things to me: an education system in disarray, manifest in its failure to inculcate even a modicum of critical-thinking skills, and an extraordinarily low level of meaningful engagement in political issues by a shockingly high number of Americans. This is a combination that suggests there is little to hope for an American renaissance anytime soon.

As for Lawrence Martin's suggestion that Sanders' commendable call for universal healthcare will drive a wedge into the Democratic Party, well, that tells us all we need to know about that party's current incarnation, doesn't it?

Owen Gray said...

As an old teacher, Lorne, I'm particularly disturbed by what seems to be a general lack of critical thinking. I believed that I worked hard to help my students think carefully. Sometimes I think critically about how successful I was.

Anonymous said...

To add to your observation about an American lack of critical thinking skills, let me mention the role of popular media, especially modern media such as TV and the internet, which may inform, might even have a genuine interest in informing the public, but still is often driven by profit. The more conflict it can generate among Americans, the greater the public's interest in its dramatic stories, the higher its ratings. Only yesterday, Senator McCain urged Americans to consider this aspect of the media rather than be enticed by its emotional appeals. He pointed out it is driving wedges between Americans to the point that compromise is made increasingly difficult to the detriment of the Nation. I doubt if news media ever has had more tools at its disposal to influence public beliefs and opinions than it does today. The need for critical thinking skills - especially as they relate to today's media tool basket - has never been greater.


CD

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure that I buy the golden mean argument that's being set out here. Moderation in eating and drinking may indeed be beneficial, but moderation in a bad course of action is not.

And that's precisely where these "pox on both sides" arguments fall apart. Take the healthcare question Lawrence brings up. The right-wing extremists would shut down or severely curtail government-funded health insurance thereby denying healthcare to millions of Americans unable to afford it. The left-wing "extremists" want government-funded health insurance (aka single payer) made available to all. The golden mean might say that the ACA is the acceptable compromise, perhaps with some tinkering to make it better.

But is it? Clearly not, as far as the rest of the developed world is concerned. The rest of the world has known since 1883, when Bismarck passed health, accident and disability laws in Germany, that a government-funded social health insurance system provides better health outcomes at lower cost. And Bismarck was a conservative.

The US is in fact an extreme outlier, with Americans paying more for healthcare and getting worse outcomes than anywhere else in the developed world even under the ACA. The same sort of argument might be raised for slavery, with Jim Crow laws as "the golden mean." Again, this is BS.

"Both sides" arguments that fail to consider that the extremists on one side may in fact be right most often serve the interests of those resisting progress, i.e. conservatives. See e.g. Trudeau's attempt to portray himself as offering the "golden mean" on climate change.

Cap

Owen Gray said...

I need a couple of initials after your question, Anon, to publish it. When I taught Grade 13 English, we used 1984 and Politics and the English Language as our basic texts. We dealt with logical fallacies and syllogistic reasoning. We tried not to get too esoteric. But we did emphasize how language can be used to manipulate people.

Owen Gray said...

Much of modern media is predicated on a conflict model, CD. The more intense the conflict, the higher the ratings. Even schlock shows like Jerry Springer thrive on conflict. When the bell rings, the opponents wrestle with each other.

Compromise is forbidden.

Owen Gray said...

Your argument has merit, Cap. There are some issues -- like slavery -- on which there can be no compromise. The problem these days seems to be that every issue is like slavery. And that's because reason and -- as Lorne points out -- critical thinking are nowhere to be found. The trick is to know the difference between issues.

Steve said...

Owen the Truth is fiction. Rule Britannia pulled it off for centuries, what the Americans never thinkaboot is the internet.

Owen Gray said...

The Economist piece raises the question, "Have the spies found a way around democracy?" If they have, there is no reason to rejoice, Steve.

The Mound of Sound said...


I think democracy in America is as fantastic as Potemkin's village, Owen. How degraded have the constituent elements of liberal democracy become in modern America? The depth and breadth of the fissure in a once relatively cohesive society, even taken in isolation of the several other contradictions and inconsistencies, points to a different form of state, an oligarchy.

Americans and, to a somewhat lesser extent the rest of us, have lost sight of how far our democracy has been compromised in the age of neoliberalism. David Gergen points out that Nixon would not stand a chance of getting the Republican nomination today. He'd be rejected as a socialist.

I'm now reading a treasure of a book, "The Meaning of Modern Life, A Course of 40 Lectures" from 1907. It's an anthology of essays of prominent progressive thinkers writing before the era of world wars, the Great Depression, radical capitalism and the neoliberal onslaught. It provides badly needed context from which to gauge what we have become, where we tripped up, paths we might not have taken had we recalled our own past. There has not been anything remotely linear in our transformation from 1900 to 2020. The book is as inspirational as it is troubling. Hard to find but I managed to score a first edition in good condition for $15.

Owen Gray said...

Sounds like a worthwhile read, Mound. We live in an age of short attention spans and lost historical context.