Perlstein on liberals vs conservatives

 Quick thought about a quote on page 812:

There is a saying: Conservatives seek converts, liberals seek heretics. And: Democrats fall in love; Republicans fall in line.

There's a tension between these but it's a resolvable tension. Regarding the first point, it fits with history: Liberals trace their roots to the Puritans, who had a morality code to enforce, and oh did they enforce it! Conservatives trace their roots to the Scots-Irish, who have preferred revivals and conversions. They sin all the time and oh do they need redemption. Puritans sin, but they do so as blots on uptight perfect lives. They should know better, they know it, and they'll never let anyone forget it. The right, well, they're raisin' hell, ya know? Of course they need redemption. It all fits the history.

(For the record, I still prefer Puritans. I grade papers for a living.)

Of course, when you seek impossible purity you'll never find it, so in order to feel like you found it you'll have to fool yourself, and fools fall in love. And then you'll fall out of love.

But what has he done?

The Cal State system has announced the selection of a new Chancellor to oversee the 23 campuses. He's been serving as President of CSU Fresno for several years, and if the campus is being run well then one can reasonably suspect that he'll do a decent enough job running the system. So far so good.

The announcement, however, says very little about his professional accomplishments and skills.  They're mentioned, of course. But far more attention goes to his ethnicity (Mexican-American), parentage (single mother), grand-parentage (immigrant grandfather), class background (first-generation college student), and place of origin (California's central valley). So what? Millions of people share these characteristics, and some of them would be great at running a university system while others would be terrible. Is he any good? We don't know.

At this point somebody could say that I'm treating him as a token, presuming that he must be lacking qualifications if they talk about identity, but that's not what I'm presuming. I think it's entirely possible that the CSU press release is doing him a grave disservice. (The CSU is well-known for doing people grave disservices on a daily basis.) Of course, it's also possible that he's an untalented and unaccomplished mediocrity, but that would simply make him utterly typical of CSU administrators. The CSU's untalented and unaccomplished mediocrities come in all sexes, genders, races, colors, etc. I've met pale and male administrators who couldn't manage their way out of a paperbag if handed a scissors and a map. I'm not presuming anything except that he probably reflects the CSU's administrators, and that the CSU PR office is serving him as poorly as the CSU serves everyone else.

And I still want to know what he's actually accomplished. Because, you know, he's just been promoted. It would be nice to know if the new boss is any good.

Interesting take on de Tocqueville

There's so much to say these days, both in the frustrations of my immediate work and the insanity of the wider world. I should probably blog more thoughts and mouth off on Facebook less, but blogging takes more effort. Hence social media slew blogs.

Anyway, today I came across an interesting essay in Areo about victimhood culture and de Tocqueville. de Tocqueville noted that competition in America is intense, and (aside from the richest, who are always secure) the comfortable classes enjoyed less surety than elsewhere, while the poor at least enjoyed a baseline of material comfort assured by a prosperous society that has made certain material conveniences cheap and abundant. The rich and poor being close to each other, they find more ways to compete with each other.

The author goes on to note that this can help explain victimhood culture in America. If you can't easily attain greater strength, why not signal greater vulnerability? Even the comfortable feel more vulnerable than elsewhere (indeed, 19th century British literature describes a secure class that is not noble-born but is essentially trust funders), and it's not like the uncomfortable can easily pull far ahead. So vulnerability is a plausible thing to reach for. The author goes on to note that humans are uniquely vulnerable among animals, a status that is necessary because our strength comes from an extended period of learning skills rather than relying on inborn strength and instinct. It has given us dominance over the planet, but also means that our species is wired to support others during their vulnerable stage.

Our desire to help the vulnerable can be channeled to great good and nobility, but it can also be abused. Like any instinct with a downside, we are wired with a compensating mechanism, in this case a desire to detect cheaters. We want to punish bad faith. So much of the culture war today arises from both an excess of victimhood and a resentful reaction to it. (You can reverse the order of causality if you like but the dynamic remains self-reinforcing.)

One thing I've noted before is that America's elite classes are justly proud of having slain a racist dragon.  Yes, there is still racism, hence I said "a racist dragon" rather than "all racist dragons." But still, a great victory was won, and multiple challenges to the system's authority came directly from racism. The elite classes know that the system's greatest tests have come from these dragons, and it brings out their best instincts. Of course, it also sets certain instincts to high alert, which has both upsides and downsides. We see those downsides in victimhood culture. We see their upsides in the very fact that victimhood culture is disproportionate: If those upsides hadn't won great victories there's be nothing excessive about claims of victimhood. It's an eternal tradeoff between false positives and false negatives. Our system's finest moments have come from confronting the true positives, so it's understandable that it's eager to find positives.