A few years ago, I wrote a lightweight thriller called Tongues of Fire. I wrote it for fun and my wife’s entertainment, and after an unsuccessful attempt to publish it, I put it on this website for free downloading. In August, the main page of the novel received 917 visits. In July, there were 804. I know those are not huge numbers, and I realize that they include repeat visits, hits from “bots,” mistaken referrals from Google, etc. Still, as the nerds say, I’m getting a “nontrivial” number of visitors. As far as Google knows, there’s only one external link to the novel–and that’s just an item on a long list of free books. No one ever emails me about it or leaves a comment on the webpage. I’m trying to guess: Who visits? Why? What do they think?
Monthly Archives: September 2006
“the precedence of inside authority”
Yesterday, I argued that communities always need strong civic participation before they can benefit from government aid, philanthropy, and other forms of outside help. Walt Whitman put the same point more grandiloquently in the following lines from Leaves of Grass (81:121 ff.):
Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of elected persons;
…
Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside authority;
Where the citizen is always the head and ideal?and President, Mayor, Governor, and what not, are agents for pay;
…
There the great city stands.
beyond warm and fuzzy
Toward the end of Diminished Democracy, Theda Skocpol lists some recommendations that emerged from the National Commission on Civic Renewal (of which I was deputy director) and Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone. She mentions proposals for strengthening human interactions at the local level and enhancing civic education. Skocpol writes:
Such prescriptions evoke warm and fuzzy feelings in all of us caught in increasingly frenzied worlds of demanding work and hard-pressed family life. But as strategies for the revitalization of U.S. democracy, recommendations so preoccupied with local social life–remedies that ignore issues of economic inequality, power disparity, and political demobilization–are simply not plausible. …
Improving local communities, and social life more generally, will not create sufficient democratic leverage to tackle problems that can only be addressed with concerted national commitment.
The state of Maine, for example, is a wonderfully civic place, scoring near the top of Putnam’s cross-state index of social capital. No surprise, for Maine has strong civic traditions, a progressive Clean Elections Law, and relatively high voting rates. The state boasts remarkably neighborly towns; active nonprofits and citizens’ groups; elected officials readily available for personal contact; public radio and television stations plus the Bangor Daily News practicing civic journalism at its best; and native wealthy citizens (above all novelist Stephen King and his wife, Tabitha) who give generously and wisely to community undertakings everywhere in Maine. But Mainers still need to be part of a broader national community and democratic politics with real clout. Over the decade of the 1990s, four-fifths of Maine families have experienced a steady deterioration in real incomes. What is more, the erosion of health insurance marches forward inexorably as more and more Maine businesses and middle-class as well as poor people suffer from the rate-setting practices of nationally powerful insurance companies. Despite local civic vitality, in other words, many Maine communities and people have been badly hurt by the erosion of active democratic government in the United States.
I fully agree with all of this. I also share Skocpol’s view that civil society ought to be political as well as social, and national as well as local. In other words, voluntary groups should have national agendas as well as social and service functions.
Still, the importance of a strong civic culture is not negated by the trends Skocpol mentions: declining real income and access to health care. It’s true that a government could (and, in my opinion, should) cover everyone’s health insurance and raise real family incomes through changes in tax rates. However, those redistributive policies will not address many of the problems that are uppermost on people’s minds in Maine and elsewhere–such as how to make public schools work for all kids, or how to cut the crime rate, or how to generate satisfying and secure jobs. Government has a crucial role in addressing those problems, but it will almost inevitably act through independent grantees or local public institutions such as neighborhood schools. Much depends on how well those institutions perform, which–in turn–depends on how well they tap the passion, energy, and experience of local citizens.
Moreover, we have to ask why people don’t demand policies like universal health care. Such proposals are reasonably popular in surveys but do not motivate mass political action. I think there are two main reasons. First, as Skocpol has argued, people lack the civic infrastructure through which to influence the government. They need associations with national influence but also local roots so that they have ways of entering civil society and developing political skills and identities. Second, people are suspicious of big institutions such as schools and health systems. To some extent, that is the result of anti-government propaganda. But to some extent it is because big institutions are unresponsive and rather ineffective. Thus it seems to me necessary first to build participatory, responsive, local public institutions–such as those in Maine–and then to ask people to vote for redistribution.
expectations for the next Congress
What should we expect if the Democrats gain control of the U.S. House in November? If we’re dreaming, we could imagine that they would propose an agenda to renew democracy at home and abroad–one that could also attract a few Republican votes. But there is no sign of that agenda on the House Democratic Leader’s webpage. (Her statements on “issues” are almost completely negative, and virtually all of her proposals involve modest increases in federal spending for existing programs, or tax cuts.) Therefore, if we are realistic, we ought to hope for the following benefits:
1. More competent and efficient administration as a result of Congressional oversight. That assumes, however, that the Democrats will do a good job overseeing.
2. Justice, in the form of investigations that uncover genuine malfeasance in government. Congressional committees are not generally very good at investigating crimes. They are prone to grand-standing, bias, and bad strategy. But it’s better to have imperfect congressional investigations than none at all.
3. Fiscal sanity, if Democrats block further tax cuts and Republicans block big spending increases. The Democrats could also achieve efficiencies by rewriting the prescription benefit. On the other hand, the existing tax cuts will remain in place, protected by the president’s veto. At worst, we will see a bidding war with rival proposals for tax cuts and spending increases. (The House Democrats’ webpage promises “middle class tax cuts” and tax breaks for businesses “to hire the unemployed.”)
4. Generally more “conservative” politics, in the root sense of that word. Republicans will be less likely to achieve radical changes in the social contract, such as partially privatizing Social Security or deporting illegal immigrants. At the same time, all the proposals on Nancy Pelosi’s website are highly incremental, fairly traditionalist–and have low odds of becoming law.
I think that divided government is desirable; and the Democrats’ priorities match mine more closely than the Republicans’ do. However, for anyone who is deeply troubled by our staggering rates of incarceration, the fact that only half of our minority children complete high school, or the threat of global warming, the present Democratic leadership promises relatively little. At best, a Democratic victory in November would be a small step in the right direction. Actual solutions will involve much deeper and longer-term change.
good writing
Last week, in bed with the flu, I read four detective novels whose dates of publication ranged from 1938 to 2003. There was stylish writing in all those books: rhythmic, observant, atmospheric–and various, too. For example:
When I thought of Germany I thought of parades, of swastika banners flapping from tall poles, of loud-speakers, of stout field-marshals and goose-stepping men with steel helmets, of concentration camps. When I thought of Russia I thought of dark, stupid Romanoffs, of the Winter Palace, of Cossacks, of crowds streaming in terror, of canopied priests swinging censers, of Lenin and Stalin, of grain rippling in the breeze, of the Lubianka prison. (Eric Ambler, Cause for Alarm, 1938)
The magnificent stones, symbols of courage, cruelty, and betrayal, stood sentinel at the one cleft in the ridge of the Purbeck Hills as they had for a thousand years. As he ate his solitary picnic, Dalgliesh found his eyes constantly drawn to those stark embattled slabs of mutilated ashlar silhouetted high against the gentle sky. (P.D. James, The Black Tower, 1975)
He ordered another scotch and told the guy who came in and sat next to him at the bar he’d won 470 bucks at Spade’s Boardwalk. Just like that, in about three minutes. The guy said, big fucking deal; you want to keep it, get out of town, fast. The guy was a blackjack dealer at Resorts International, across the street. He had been a floorman at Tropicana, but he’d tapped out a dealer for looking away from the cards and it turned out the dealer had more juice than he did, so listen to this, he got fired for doing his job. Politics, man. Who you know. You’d don’t party with the right people, kiss your ass good-bye. (Elmore Leonard, Glitz, 1985)
He turned the radio on and moved the dial to PGC. The Super Funk Regulator was on the air, talking to a woman who had called in from her car.
“Where you at right now?” asked the DJ.
“I’m on Benning Road, heading home from work.”
“Who you goin’ to see?”
“My son Darius,” said the woman giggling, obviously hyped to be on the radio and live. “He’s ten years old.”
“You have a good one,” said the DJ. “Thanks for rolling with a brother.”
“Thanks for lettin’ a sister roll.”
Strange smiled. He did love D.C.
(George Pelecanos, Soul Circus, 2003)