I suppose this logic is mostly visible in behavioral terms. While defending their own unique agendas, there is indeed commonality among political extremes; for in their radicalness they become intolerant in their quest for what Stanley Kubrick called a 'purity of essence'. In other words: extreme left and extreme right differ in content, but they commune in form.
David Brooks goes a little beyond this line of argument in his column of March the 5th, 2010. Arguing that the Tea-Party (or multiple Tea Parties) and the Hippies movement of the 1960's share not only the methods or tactics used to bring attention to their ideological positions, but -more important- a common belief in what he terms 'mass innocence', the 'assumption that the people are pure and virtuous and that evil is introduced into society by corrupt elites and rotten authority structures'.
I would not know how to argue against that point directly. Yes, they do have some things in common formally speaking. Yet, I feel there is something quite off in this line of argument. In fact, I was thinking exactly the opposite thing just yesterday evening.
As an intellectual exercise it is interesting to juxtapose both 'movements'. This exercise might teach us about political tactics and theater, how to deal with these radicalized groups, etc. But, still, we have a political and moral responsibility to see things for what they really are.
In the specific case of the hippies and the tea-parties there are two fundamental difference that Mr. Brooks is not considering:
First, what William James called 'morbid-mindedness' and 'healthy-mindedness'. It is the difference, to put it in regular American English, between being a born-again Christian and being a New-Age mystic.
Second, the Tea Parties are a mob-y movement that stems from economic resentment, while the hippies came -for the most part- from the privileged classes of America.
Hippies invented New Age. The Tea Party phenomenon is inseparable from the Christianist movement.
The Christianist movement is morbid: they are obsessed with evil, evil-doers, Mexicans and sin. The world as such is inherently threatening for them, and force should be used to curb the evil out there.
The hippies, well, they were about peace and love. Remember? This is what James calls healthy-mindedness.
True, the hippies had their conspiracy theorists, like Mr. Chomsky the pamphleteer; yet, it was a movement mostly founded on the belief that the world was fundamentally good. This is not what the Tea Partiers believe. They think that the world is out to get them; that they have to defend themselves against those damned Islamo-Mexicans, erect taller walls, hoard on food for a potential civil war, etc.
So, while Mr. Brooks is partially right he is also way off-target. The hippies and the Tea Parties are much more different than alike.
Are you really disagreeing with Brooks? I think he would concede that the New Left and the Tea Partiers have dramatically different goals. It's the means that are parallel as well as the overall belief in the goodness and naivete of the people that they have in common.
ReplyDeleteThe hippies were trying to awaken the masses (like the Leninist enlightened elite), while the Tea Partiers see themselves as the enlightened masses themselves. I concede that Brooks is unto something interesting, yet, he needed to underline the fact that despite the formal similarities, content-wise the two movements are as different as you can find them. I guess that assuming naivite from the masses is a common trait that most political players assume. So, on that side I see nothing new in Brook's argument.
ReplyDelete