Next book: Age of Entitlement by Christopher Caldwell

I've decided to read The Age of Entitlement by Christopher Caldwell. It proposes to explain (from a decidedly right-wing viewpoint) America's current divisions in terms of what happened in the 60's. I have enjoyed Rick Perlstein's hefty journalistic history of the emergence of America's current right-wing coalition in terms of the 1960's, so I suppose it's only fair to look at a view from the other side.  (Though Caldwell's take is decidedly polemical rather than documentary.)

I'm two chapters in, and one point leaps out: Caldwell forcefully asserts (while skimping on citations) that desegregation required bad legal work (particularly Brown vs. Board of Education) and violated freedom of association. To the second point, well, from some viewpoint that is definitionally correct: Business owners were not allowed to refuse to associate with people on the basis of race. On the first point, though, I will say that to whatever extent he's right (and he provides relatively little evidence for his assertions) it increases my sympathy for the guilty liberal stance.

The version of US history that I was taught emphasized that the Civil Rights Movement was about making America live up to its promise, striking down laws that were inconsistent with America's most deeply-rooted principles.  Seen in that light, the court rulings that had buttressed segregation (e.g. Plessy vs. Ferguson) were violations (at least in spirit, if not in letter) of the post-Civil War amendments.  However, if Caldwell is correct, and if a smart lawyer would have to concede the permissibility (and perhaps even appropriateness) of segregation law under our Constitutional arrangements, then our system is much harder to celebrate.  Yes, every system of laws is ultimately built upon enforcement by violence, and hence lends itself to terrible things, but in the best case that violence is undertaken to fend off something worse. The argument here is that something worse is enshrined in the system, and not just in the Constitutional provisions rendered null after the end of slavery.

In that case, a smart lawyer might feel a deep sense of shame, as Shelby Steele discussed, and out of that shame feel conflicted about the system that they are supposed to work within. It makes sense that upper-class liberals (a social segment where lawyers are abundant) might be overcome by guilt. Yes, they can deny it, singing the praises of Brown vs. Board of Education (and similar rulings) as consistent with the spirit of our Constitutional system, but if Caldwell is correct, then deep down they must believe it to be a lie.

To whatever extent Caldwell is correct, conflicted emotions are the only appropriate emotions for a well-educated liberal who is immersed in the system. The restlessness of our elites makes sense.

Mind you, I'm far from convinced that Caldwell (and by extension a guilt-ridden elite class) is correct. Too many people (of all skin tones) have worked too hard to extend the promises of American ideals to all Americans. In the greatest tests of federal authority (the Civil War and Southern defiance of desegregation rulings a century later) the federal government was on the side of African Americans and the rebels were on the side of racists. At a minimum, the Confederates believed that their cause had no sure footing in the American system; that's why they left.  The Union cause was hardly staffed with people whose racial opinions would pass any of today's standards, but it was still the less racist of the two sides, and it accomplished things that made America better. That has to mean something.

Of course, the greatest betrayal of African Americans was arguably the end of the military occupation of the South under Rutherford B. Hayes. I will not defend the abandonment of African Americans, but I will say that I can forgive fallible humans who decided to end a military occupation after more than a decade. Military occupations are terrible things, and while the social situation that came afterward was even worse, as a citizen of a country currently involved in military occupations, I get it. Also, it is telling that what ultimately brought down that system of segregation was not a second military occupation (though federal troops did enforce a few court orders) but the mobilization of Christians for the greatest display of non-violence in American history.  It is terrible that America waited so long to end this, but it is telling that it took something far more radical and Christian than a military intervention to do it, and the magnitude of the task is revealed by the fact that it took the most gifted orator and most profound Christian thinker in American history to lead that effort.

Then again, the fact that the magnitude of the task required our greatest orator and Christian thinker perhaps points to the severity of the rot in our culture.

Anyway, Caldwell is not necessarily making the point that he intended.  Let's see how this unfolds.