This Zuckenberg thing is telling. People are outraged over how the guy is going to give his own money away. Political correctness has become more than an shallow attitude, it is a movement. Teach for America is a common option for college graduates, nonprofits have gone from make-work projects for the wealthy to aspirations for all, comics avoid campuses for fear of drifting outside the tight circle of approval. People can get their college loans forgiven if they work for non-profits. (And government.)
And righteousness has birthed a militant arm, the cultural vigilantes. Some might argue it is too selective to be either spontaneous or genuine: The Mozilla CEO is hounded out of office for mainstream and legal opinions, Romney vilified for completely fabricated bullying charges decades ago in high school, a young woman is offended by the lyrics of the nation's best selling song being played in a bar and initiates a petition that gets the DJ fired for playing it. But results matter.
De Tocqueville described America as a country that had coalesced around the notion of individual liberty. It, liberty, was the social bond that cut across and united all groups. But liberty has a serious downside: Inequity. De Tocqueville said that equality was achievable only through tyranny and that the American knowingly rejected it. Liberty solved a lot of problems in the democracy. It unified the most disparate groups, withheld judgment from all, respected failure and was self justifying; it could exist with religion but did not require it. But we may be changing. And liberty, as a unifying principle, might be very hard to replace with a satisfactory substitute because liberty is, it can not be granted or imposed.
Inequality might become a problem the young are unwilling to live with. And, as the country becomes more diverse, fewer things are held in common. If the concept of liberty is insufficient as a bond, we may need to seek something else. Historically those unifying elements have not been good as all cultures seek themselves and mark The Other. Perhaps we will fall back on some poorly defined good will. But that likely will eventually be shown as too weak and in need of some stronger and more aggressive administration. Some unifying principle will have to be imposed, as de Tocqueville predicted.
And righteousness has birthed a militant arm, the cultural vigilantes. Some might argue it is too selective to be either spontaneous or genuine: The Mozilla CEO is hounded out of office for mainstream and legal opinions, Romney vilified for completely fabricated bullying charges decades ago in high school, a young woman is offended by the lyrics of the nation's best selling song being played in a bar and initiates a petition that gets the DJ fired for playing it. But results matter.
De Tocqueville described America as a country that had coalesced around the notion of individual liberty. It, liberty, was the social bond that cut across and united all groups. But liberty has a serious downside: Inequity. De Tocqueville said that equality was achievable only through tyranny and that the American knowingly rejected it. Liberty solved a lot of problems in the democracy. It unified the most disparate groups, withheld judgment from all, respected failure and was self justifying; it could exist with religion but did not require it. But we may be changing. And liberty, as a unifying principle, might be very hard to replace with a satisfactory substitute because liberty is, it can not be granted or imposed.
Inequality might become a problem the young are unwilling to live with. And, as the country becomes more diverse, fewer things are held in common. If the concept of liberty is insufficient as a bond, we may need to seek something else. Historically those unifying elements have not been good as all cultures seek themselves and mark The Other. Perhaps we will fall back on some poorly defined good will. But that likely will eventually be shown as too weak and in need of some stronger and more aggressive administration. Some unifying principle will have to be imposed, as de Tocqueville predicted.
No comments:
Post a Comment