It is strange to me that you proffer this "because you were once a kid, you have a moral obligation to have kids" model as being collectivist and focused on our obligations to society, in contrast with the individualist tendencies of libertariansim (explicitly individualist) and... some wide gesture at the left, as though socialism isn't explicitly collectivist (and as though that's not something that conservatives seem to consistently dislike about it).
Along those same lines, you insist that this debt - the debt of our birth - must be repaid, because "(t)hat we did not choose this debt is of no moral import—it is inherent to our existence." You spare a few words to denounce the "individualism" of wokism - can't be a conservative without complaining about the Wokes - but this is the foundation of the most surface objections to "wokism" - the idea that we have obligations to others in our society, some of which stem from debts that we owe that we had no hand in creating, no choice in incurring.
It seems strange to suggest that the fact that I have ancestors creates a (in your words, self-evident) social obligation to have children, but the fact that black people were literally enslaved for hundreds of years does not create any kind of social obligation in those who live today. I'm not saying that's your position, just that what you're positing here seems a pretty hard sell to a generation of conservatives that resent socialism because using tax money to support the poor is theft, who bristle at even the lightest implication that they owe anything to anyone.
I mean, I guess what you posit allows for "I don't owe anyone anything except for my immediate family, to whom I owe only continued existence" but I can't see that having any of the positive social impact you seem to think it would have.
It's unclear, to put it mildly, why we are talking about a "conservative moral vision" when preferred leaders are devoid of such a vision. Placing our nihil obstat on leaders who fail to act in a virtuous way implies a disconnection between leaders and the larger society. Just this week we witnessed outlandish stories of Haitians eating pets that were characterized by the Republican governor of Ohio as arising from "the garbage on the Internet." Our founders may have disagreed on many matters, but none of them believed that we could have a virtuous society if our leaders were amoral. "Castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful" is unlikely to lead to anything worthwhile.
In case you are keeping score, here's one life-long liberal cosigning your statements that a shared moral vision is missing and desperately needed, and that it must balance rights with responsibilities. In fact, I think most of my leftist friends would agree, regardless of religious belief or lack thereof. Furthermore, I think we would be on the same page as you regarding the values underlying that vision. I wonder how far we'd have to wade into the weeds before we disagreed?
I also concur that "highly educated managerial elite" are a problem, but I'm afraid its roots stretch beyond how the meritocracy operates. We, as a culture, have allowed our system to be shaped by the worst of us - people who lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead tend to, well, get ahead. They are seldom caught or shamed or removed from power. While that's long been true, their excesses have been normalized (even valorized?) via media algorithms in a way that I still can't wrap my head around. Our shared moral vision must address that if we want any kind of moral society.
It's really at the bottom of the article that we get to the core of the issue:
"We begin our lives with an incalculable debt. That we did not choose this debt is of no moral import—it is inherent to our existence. And we have only one way of repaying it: to work equally hard to bring about the next generation."
THIS is the crux of the argument between the secularists and Christians in this country - that Christians assume the above to be self-evident and immune to interrogation. I, for one, do not believe there is any debt at all, nor is there any obligation on our part to continue the species. None. Not as some form of nihilism - I simply don't believe there is a moral value to survival of the species. And until this gap in worldviews is resolved, conservatives won't be able to offer much by way of moral guidance - they have to come to terms with the fact that on the most fundamental premise - that the survival of human race is unquestionably morally good (no matter what school of morality you consult or subscribe to) - we disagree.
Weknow that “the common good, and thus a coherent politics, requires a shared definition of virtue derived from a shared moral vision and set of values, which in turn must reflect the traditions and character of the nation and its culture.”
Thank you, and Amen! Couldn't agree more. In the 1990s, some of us tried to address this at the now-defunct Center for the Study of Values in Public Life at Harvard’s Divinity School. (My focus was on moral capitalism and corporate governance.) Alas, "moral relativism" and unbridled empiriciam held sway, and still do, but now are beginning to crumbl. Such constraints don't feed the soul, as our impoverished rhetoric and practices reveal. There is a way forward, though, should we choose to act. It begins by drawing on interpretations of "civic moral obligation" embedded in religious, philosophic, and cultural traditions, and discerning their meaning / application to democracy's disorder.
You can't have a conservative moral vision-religious or secular- in America if your definition of America includes the big cities. Cities have always been the home of all sorts of depravity.
That seems like a wild thing to say (let alone believe). Something like 80% of Americans live in cities. "You can't have a moral vision - religious or secular - in America unless you find a way to exclude most Americans" is maybe not the incisive mic-drop you intended. You have a set of things you don't like, which you call "depravity", and have decided that the group of people responsible for those bad things happening is "people who live in cities". Not a specific set of them, just aaaaalllll of them who share the characteristic of "lives in big city".
I'd say you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but this is like yeeting a baby off of a bursting dam, I can't even see where the baby is anymore
About 19% of the population lives in the 100 biggest cities, a number that is almost equal to the rural population. The balance is suburbs, exurbs and places that are adjacent to the big cities and effectively part of them. So nowhere near 80%. As always, it depends on where you draw the borders. There are more conservatives in CA than in the Mountain West combined. They are just outnumbered where they are. Any sort of split would have to make provisions for people left "behind enemy lines". Protections against persecution, assistance with emigration etc.
It is strange to me that you proffer this "because you were once a kid, you have a moral obligation to have kids" model as being collectivist and focused on our obligations to society, in contrast with the individualist tendencies of libertariansim (explicitly individualist) and... some wide gesture at the left, as though socialism isn't explicitly collectivist (and as though that's not something that conservatives seem to consistently dislike about it).
Along those same lines, you insist that this debt - the debt of our birth - must be repaid, because "(t)hat we did not choose this debt is of no moral import—it is inherent to our existence." You spare a few words to denounce the "individualism" of wokism - can't be a conservative without complaining about the Wokes - but this is the foundation of the most surface objections to "wokism" - the idea that we have obligations to others in our society, some of which stem from debts that we owe that we had no hand in creating, no choice in incurring.
It seems strange to suggest that the fact that I have ancestors creates a (in your words, self-evident) social obligation to have children, but the fact that black people were literally enslaved for hundreds of years does not create any kind of social obligation in those who live today. I'm not saying that's your position, just that what you're positing here seems a pretty hard sell to a generation of conservatives that resent socialism because using tax money to support the poor is theft, who bristle at even the lightest implication that they owe anything to anyone.
I mean, I guess what you posit allows for "I don't owe anyone anything except for my immediate family, to whom I owe only continued existence" but I can't see that having any of the positive social impact you seem to think it would have.
Fisher Ames IV Sep. 15
It's unclear, to put it mildly, why we are talking about a "conservative moral vision" when preferred leaders are devoid of such a vision. Placing our nihil obstat on leaders who fail to act in a virtuous way implies a disconnection between leaders and the larger society. Just this week we witnessed outlandish stories of Haitians eating pets that were characterized by the Republican governor of Ohio as arising from "the garbage on the Internet." Our founders may have disagreed on many matters, but none of them believed that we could have a virtuous society if our leaders were amoral. "Castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful" is unlikely to lead to anything worthwhile.
In case you are keeping score, here's one life-long liberal cosigning your statements that a shared moral vision is missing and desperately needed, and that it must balance rights with responsibilities. In fact, I think most of my leftist friends would agree, regardless of religious belief or lack thereof. Furthermore, I think we would be on the same page as you regarding the values underlying that vision. I wonder how far we'd have to wade into the weeds before we disagreed?
I also concur that "highly educated managerial elite" are a problem, but I'm afraid its roots stretch beyond how the meritocracy operates. We, as a culture, have allowed our system to be shaped by the worst of us - people who lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead tend to, well, get ahead. They are seldom caught or shamed or removed from power. While that's long been true, their excesses have been normalized (even valorized?) via media algorithms in a way that I still can't wrap my head around. Our shared moral vision must address that if we want any kind of moral society.
I'm glad you're optimistic! Someone needs to be.
It's really at the bottom of the article that we get to the core of the issue:
"We begin our lives with an incalculable debt. That we did not choose this debt is of no moral import—it is inherent to our existence. And we have only one way of repaying it: to work equally hard to bring about the next generation."
THIS is the crux of the argument between the secularists and Christians in this country - that Christians assume the above to be self-evident and immune to interrogation. I, for one, do not believe there is any debt at all, nor is there any obligation on our part to continue the species. None. Not as some form of nihilism - I simply don't believe there is a moral value to survival of the species. And until this gap in worldviews is resolved, conservatives won't be able to offer much by way of moral guidance - they have to come to terms with the fact that on the most fundamental premise - that the survival of human race is unquestionably morally good (no matter what school of morality you consult or subscribe to) - we disagree.
You write:
Weknow that “the common good, and thus a coherent politics, requires a shared definition of virtue derived from a shared moral vision and set of values, which in turn must reflect the traditions and character of the nation and its culture.”
Thank you, and Amen! Couldn't agree more. In the 1990s, some of us tried to address this at the now-defunct Center for the Study of Values in Public Life at Harvard’s Divinity School. (My focus was on moral capitalism and corporate governance.) Alas, "moral relativism" and unbridled empiriciam held sway, and still do, but now are beginning to crumbl. Such constraints don't feed the soul, as our impoverished rhetoric and practices reveal. There is a way forward, though, should we choose to act. It begins by drawing on interpretations of "civic moral obligation" embedded in religious, philosophic, and cultural traditions, and discerning their meaning / application to democracy's disorder.
You can't have a conservative moral vision-religious or secular- in America if your definition of America includes the big cities. Cities have always been the home of all sorts of depravity.
That seems like a wild thing to say (let alone believe). Something like 80% of Americans live in cities. "You can't have a moral vision - religious or secular - in America unless you find a way to exclude most Americans" is maybe not the incisive mic-drop you intended. You have a set of things you don't like, which you call "depravity", and have decided that the group of people responsible for those bad things happening is "people who live in cities". Not a specific set of them, just aaaaalllll of them who share the characteristic of "lives in big city".
I'd say you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but this is like yeeting a baby off of a bursting dam, I can't even see where the baby is anymore
About 19% of the population lives in the 100 biggest cities, a number that is almost equal to the rural population. The balance is suburbs, exurbs and places that are adjacent to the big cities and effectively part of them. So nowhere near 80%. As always, it depends on where you draw the borders. There are more conservatives in CA than in the Mountain West combined. They are just outnumbered where they are. Any sort of split would have to make provisions for people left "behind enemy lines". Protections against persecution, assistance with emigration etc.