The following is an excerpt from a recent David Ignatius column that can be read in full here:
… We have been living for eight years with the paradox of “conservative optimists” running our nation’s foreign policy. That’s what sticks in the mind in this last week of the Bush presidency. This administration has fused a dark, conservative view about the need for military power with a rosy conception about the perfectibility of humankind. The result has been a kind of armed do-gooderism — and a foreign policy that has frightened and angered the rest of the world.
Ever since I grasped the idea of the implications of the Gospel, filtered down to me from Jesus Christ, St. Paul, Augustine, Martin Luther, the English Reformers, FitzSimons Allison, and Paul Zahl, I have been unable to view life apart from my newly found “spectacles”. I have forgotten who to attest the following statement to, but I find that I cannot find many (if any) exceptions to it: “The only empirically verifiable aspect to Christianity is the bondage of the will.” Empirically verifiable being that which can be presently tested from a present population of many, many instances that occur in real time right now.
The problem with the foreign policy and economic ideas outlined above is that humans beings do not have free will and they are not rational. In fact, their wills are bound to themselves and they are quite irrational.
… We have been living for eight years with the paradox of “conservative optimists” running our nation’s foreign policy. That’s what sticks in the mind in this last week of the Bush presidency. This administration has fused a dark, conservative view about the need for military power with a rosy conception about the perfectibility of humankind. The result has been a kind of armed do-gooderism — and a foreign policy that has frightened and angered the rest of the world.With the inauguration of Barack Obama, the moment has arrived for what I want to call the “progressive pessimists.” This new worldview would marry the liberal desire to make life better with a realist’s appreciation of the limits of political and military power. This is a gloomier progressivism than President Kennedy’s 1961 admonition to “pay any price, bear any burden.” We’ve tried that.
… Bush’s great mistakes have been those of an optimist who believed in social engineering on a global scale. He rolled into Iraq convinced that this traditional tribal society could be remade in a Western image of progress. When he talked of democracy in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries, there was a sense of inevitability — that democracy and freedom are immutable historical forces rather than the product of frail and imperfect human decisions.
Ever since I grasped the idea of the implications of the Gospel, filtered down to me from Jesus Christ, St. Paul, Augustine, Martin Luther, the English Reformers, FitzSimons Allison, and Paul Zahl, I have been unable to view life apart from my newly found “spectacles”. I have forgotten who to attest the following statement to, but I find that I cannot find many (if any) exceptions to it: “The only empirically verifiable aspect to Christianity is the bondage of the will.” Empirically verifiable being that which can be presently tested from a present population of many, many instances that occur in real time right now. The great tragedy in modern Christianity and American thought these days is high anthropology, or a high expectation of what both Christian and non-Christian people are capable of. It can be seen everywhere from the ultra-liberal secularism of Manhattan to the ultra-conservative religion of the Bible Belt. It would be wonderful if this conception of human nature were true but it simply is not, however one might slice the cake.
President Bush (who I like, by the way, which is quite an unpopular place to find oneself) seems to have melded his Methodist (high) anthropology with an optimistic, Hegelian view of the progressive march of history (maybe one who has more understanding of Hegel can either correct my argument or confirm it). This can be seen as introducing an antithesis (democracy) to a thesis (Islamic and totalitarian demagoguery) in order to create a synthesis (whatever might work out from that volatile soup… hopefully, something edifying). This seemingly relies on a free will which rationally chooses that which is good and right.
This same way of thinking was applied to economic regulatory policy. The idea from the Bush Administration in this regard (colored greatly by Alan Greenspan, who was, and presumably still is, a staunch adherent to the thought of Ayn Rand) was that less regulation from the government would enable the free market to regulate itself. This school of thought presumes that the individual units of the economy (human beings) would rationally act in an ethical manner because that would be the way to increase opportunities for gain (see Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness).
The problem with the foreign policy and economic ideas outlined above is that humans beings do not have free will and they are not rational. In fact, their wills are bound to themselves and they are quite irrational.Now, would I propose more government regulation? As if the individual units of regulation (human beings) are capable of objective, rational, competent actions? That would be as naïve as the alternative. Would I propose non-intervention in foreign crises like Rwanda, WWII, or the Balkans? Not likely. All I would propose for all policies that have to do with human beings (which is all) is the presupposition of the bound will. That is all. And yet, at least for our policies, that is everything.
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COMMENTS
12 responses to “Why Not Go With What Is?”
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Hey David. Nice post. Got me to wondering too who had first coined this observation.
As far as I can tell it looks like GK Chesterton, Reinhold Neibuhr, and Karl Barth, all said something like this about the doctrine of Original Sin — within a few decades of each other. Chesteron looks to me like he was the first… unless anybody can think of somebody earlier.
G. K. Chesterton:
“Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved,” (Orthodoxy, chap. 2).
Karl Barth
Called original sin “the doctrine which emerges from all honest study of history.”
Reinhold Niebuhr
“Original sin is the only empirically verifiable doctrine in Christianity.”
Of course, I first heard it from our beloved PZ.
I would just like to point out the obvious and say that the “dark, conservative view about the need for military power with a rosy conception about the perfectibility of humankind” was not new with the G.W.Bush administration. Nor is it limited to international conflict. I think of the War on (some) Drugs, which is based on a complete denial of the reality of addiction, among other things (personal liberty, religious freedom, needed compassion, etc).
I’m quoting Igantius, not Browder, just to clarify.
Igantius, Browder, same difference… of course by that I mean the sheer genius that both possess.
Great stuff. Thanks!
John, thanks for looking those quote up. I look to be in good company 😉
But presupposing a depraved heart in all humans would spoil the party that is thrown in very kindergarten classroom (you’re a good boy!), self-help book signing (you can do it!), and shopping mall (you’re so special you deserve this sweater). Further, it would spoil the party at the Lockheed-Marting board meetings, where men pat each other on the backs for manufacturing missiles (WMDs) called “Peacekeepers” and spreading freedom to not-yet-enlightened nations by dropping “peacekeepers” on their houses.
Oh, and you’d spoil the party in so many of our churches, where shiny happy people are congratulated for being so nice to their neighbors and raising well-behaved children.
How would we explain the “good will of the American people” in the days after 9/11, and how would we understand trickle-down economics??
No, I reject this notion of total depravity. Because if we all agreed it was true, we might be led to thinking we need outside help. A savior, if you will. That would make us look so weak, and him so strong. How silly.
(All of this is to say, I agree with you! And I’ve been thinking the same thing for quite some time).
Thank you so much for writing this post, David!
I am very late with my comment here, but what the hey?
Browder, I completely agree that the bound will needs to be taken into account. Even if it is not, the reality of it will rear its ugly head regardless.
I do take issue with the column’s statement about Barack Obama’s “progressive pessimism”. I don’t see that at all. I agree Bush’s policies were based on a too high anthropology, but so are Obama’s. I don’t see him being pessimistic at all about humanity. His slogan of “Yes We Can!” is a denial of the bound will outright, and it is behind everything he does. He and Bush absolutely agree in this regard. They both think that we humans can change the world for the better. They do not agree, however, on how to do that. Bush was overly optimistic in the human sense of responsibility in his foreign and economic policies. Obama is overly optimistic in his view of the government’s ability to not make the same mistakes that corporate America has. The problem with that is the fact that American governmant is notorious for being a terrible money manager and pretty much slow at everything else too.
Anyhow, Dave, I am not implying that you disagree with me at all. You say as much in your conclusion. I was just pointing out that Ignatius is dead wrong in my opinion about the Obama era’s view of humanity. They are not pessimistic. They are whole-heartedly optimistic now that they have control. They were just pessimistic about Bush’s, and the republican, methodology.
That’s just my two cents:)
Sean,
I think that the wonderful thing about a democracy (or ‘democratic republic’ , as it were) is that you sort of get to hear a lot of voices at once.
Instead of just Mike standing up and saying ‘Enough!’, there are millions of others saying the same thing.
That being said, I think there is at least a little difference between Bush’s and Obama’s policy.
Bush seems to have said, for the past eight years- “Yes I can”, while the Obamanistas reverberate, “Yes WE can”.
Immediately we see a contrast.
Moreover, the resounding call for this newly elected president relies on HOPE, not WILL.
Obama seems to be saying that ‘ We can’, but not on our own terms, but on Someone Else’s.
The idea of hope requires that there is something or Someone out there who can help us ‘just do it’.
I personally believe, as many, that the hope of ‘Yes we can’ is dpendendent and reliant on Something greater than ourselves.
Bush’s policy seems to be just the opposite…
More of a willed determination than a ‘Hope’.
I do think they have a difference in their policies for sure. They do not agree on how to bring about the change they desire, which, I think falls more along party lines than anyone really cares to admit.
That said, they are both men of faith. I do not think Obama is relying on an Outside Power any more than Bush ever did. Bush was always very adamant about needing the help of God. I hope Obama is that way too. Of course, we know what Bush’s policies have resulted in, and we have yet to see what Obama’s policies will do. He gets the benefit of having a clean slate.
When it comes to willed determination, “Yes we can” sounds rather willful to me. Hopeful, sure, but hoping in what? I must be listening to other speeches, but I do not hear Obama appealing to anything but our ability to lead the world as the greatest nation on earth, which sounds exactly like Bush and every president for that matter. I have no problem with this because that’s politics. To say anything else would be political suicide. No one is going to get up there and promote an actual Christian (low) anthropology, that is barely done from the pulpit. I do not expect it from D.C.
The thing that I get a little concerned about is the idea held up by the column in question that Obama and his followers are somehow more in line with a low anthropology. I just do not hear that in the optimism that is all over the TV. It does not seem like optimism in anything but human ability to get together and change the world. Regan promoted a very similar idea: the U.S. being “the city on the hill”.
Call me a pessimist, but when it comes to being positive about what “we” can accomplish I just do not see evidence in history that backs that up. The only time when history does line up is in the cases when the Gospel was at the forefront, and that was the case with the man for whom this day is remembered: Martin Luther King Jr. Obama being able to be our President is certainly the fruit of MLK’s preaching the Gospel into a broken, racially divided world. Praise God for that.
Sean, I think “Yes, We Can!” was just a campaign slogan. I don’t think anyone (including Obama) is naive enough to think that the election of Obama is the start of some sort of utopia.
If you look at Obama’s appointments, they are “realists” as compared to the early Bush Administration “neo-conservatives”. Bush later shifted to the realists (Gates, Rice, etc), by the way, which he gets little to no credit for.
The realists are much more interested in givens and much more pessimistic about human nature. Think the George H.W. Bush Administration. Baker at SecState, Powell as Chmn Joint Chiefs… you get the picture.
In a way, you could almost say “Yes We Can” is a realist approach to getting oneself elected.