Salon.com > Alan Wolfe

The end of an era

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:31:00 +0000

Teddy Kennedy's death marks the end of the Kennedy era in American politics. To be sure there are younger Kennedys, and -- who knows? -- perhaps one of them will overcome personal problems and political failure and rise to the top. Perhaps, but highly unlikely. These days, the Kennedy name may help you get a place in Congress from Rhode Island, but it is unable to secure a Senate seat for you from New York.

We nonetheless continue to be fascinated by the Kennedy mystique. Will there ever be another dynasty like this one? How did it achieve its prominence? Why are liberals such as the Kennedys still missed even in a country that has turned more conservative? To mourn Edward Kennedy is inevitably to raise and try to answer questions like these.

Part of the Kennedy mystique is surely due to the unusual nature of the family. Remember Roger Clinton? What about Neil Bush? The Kennedys, it is frequently said, were a political dynasty. Yet the Bush family constitutes one as well, and during that brief period when Hillary Clinton appeared to be the frontrunner for the 2008 Democratic nomination, the Clinton name was also burnished with dynasty status. While other families have many who seek power, however, none has had the success of the Kennedys. John, Robert, and now Teddy will all be remembered as major figures in American history. No one can say that about Hugh Rodman or Marvin Bush. Most parents would be happy to have one successful child. Joe and Rose Kennedy produced a slew of them.

The lying game

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 10:35:00 +0000

Eight years after the travesty of the 2000 election, in which the media were prone to emphasize Al Gore's exaggerations while letting George W. Bush off the hook, Republican politicians finally are being called out on their dishonesty. "The biggest liar in modern political history," writes Michael Tomasky, the editor of the Guardian America, about John McCain. There are indeed so many lies associated with the Republican campaign that one can pick and choose at random. My favorites are the efforts by the McCain campaign to portray Obama as being in favor of teaching sex education to 5-year-olds and the Spanish language ad accusing him of opposing immigration reform. Your favorites might include McCain's claim that Obama will raise taxes on the middle class or his statement to the women of "The View" that Sarah Palin never requested earmarks.

The stone is cast

Tue, 15 May 2007 22:30:00 +0000

One never wants to speak ill of the dead, but in the case of Jerry Falwell, how can one not? Falwell will always be remembered for his "700 Club" comment in the wake of Sept. 11: "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'" Even though Falwell later apologized, the damage had been done: A sacred moment had been used for profane purpose.

And that, really, is Falwell's legacy. To the religious life of the United States he made no significant contribution. But to the political life of the country, he made one: He founded the Moral Majority. In so doing, Falwell managed to take something holy -- one does not have to be a Christian to admire the life and teachings of Jesus Christ -- and turned it into something partisan and divisive. Falwell, the quintessential conservative Christian, was always more conservative than Christian. To the extent that history will remember him, it will be as a politician, not as a preacher.

The culture war over Katrina

Sat, 03 Sep 2005 19:50:00 +0000

To make the case for a strong sovereign, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), whom many consider Britain's greatest political philosopher, asked his readers to imagine what would happen in a state of nature. Without authority, he wrote, there would be a perpetual war of all against all, and the conditions of life would be "nasty, brutish, and short."

We no longer have to imagine a state of nature; in the wake of Katrina's devastation, we see one raging full force in our own country. Remove authority, and what you get is what you see: Although there exists a remarkable amount of heroic self-sacrifice and care-giving beyond dedication in New Orleans, humanity's most altruistic instincts are overwhelmed by images of looting, rape, vigilantism, starvation and death.

The panderers

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 20:40:00 +0000

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, one feels safe in assuming, is no reader of classic texts in moral philosophy. But in rushing through legislation that would allow a federal judge to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo, he took sides in one of the most widely debated controversies in the history of ideas.

In making moral decisions, we can be guided by two different sets of considerations, those of empathy and those of principle. Should we respond to the particulars of a situation that cries out for our sympathies? Or are we obligated to put emotions aside and shape our conduct by universal norms meant to apply to all situations? An era dominated by mass media imagery will nearly always decide for the particular. I know of no one watching the endlessly repeated film clips of Terri Schiavo, seeming to respond to other people in the room with her, who is not moved. If one person can be prevented from dying, the obvious response would be to prevent her from dying.

Judging Bush

Fri, 02 May 2003 20:09:00 +0000

No book contributed to America's popular image of political greatness more than John F. Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage." Kennedy, as his choice of title suggests, lauded the classical virtue of courage, something he would have in common with William Bennett, whose "Book of Virtues" celebrated Homeric bravery more than it did Christian virtues such as compassion. Emblematic of Kennedy's pantheon of political heroes was Missouri Sen. Thomas Hart Benton who, under fire from his Southern colleagues for his opposition to slavery, which also made him increasingly unpopular at home, refused to modify his strong support for the Union. "I despise the bubble popularity that is won without merit and lost without crime," he wrote after the legislature of his state elected someone else in his place. "I sometimes had to act against the preconceived opinions and first impressions of my constituents, and I have never been disappointed."

Leave “The Pledge” alone

Thu, 27 Jun 2002 13:58:00 +0000

In 1954, Congress, with the approval of President Eisenhower, put the words "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance. In 2002, the 9th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals took them out.

Enacted at the height of the Cold War, the "under God" provision was meant to contrast American values with Communist ones; they were atheists, we were not. Yet the 1950s was also the period in which America came to experience significant religious diversity. Catholics, for one thing, had become an important political force; the next president after Eisenhower would be one. And Jews, the targets of our Nazi enemies during World War II, had finally won acceptance into American life. Such diversity made it impossible to describe America by using terms like Protestant or Christian. God was the best available alternative, broad enough to be inclusive of just about everyone in 1950s America who believed in something.

In declaring the term "under God" unconstitutional, the Court of Appeals held that it was exclusive rather than inclusive; not only were atheists not covered by it, but neither were adherents to all nonmonotheist religions. Should the decision therefore be celebrated as recognizing that we are no longer a Protestant, nor even a Christian, nor even a Judeo-Christian society, but one that has come to offer a place at the public table for all believers, and even for those who do not believe at all?

Hobbled from the start

Fri, 15 Dec 2000 23:10:00 +0000

Political campaigns are about power: who gets it, why and how, as the political scientist Harold Lasswell once put it. No presidential campaign in America can take place without one or another self-proclaimed Machiavelli reminding those who will listen that power is its own reward.

Yet Americans care relatively little about which candidate wins and a great deal about what kind of person he is and what sorts of policies he will pursue. In that sense, political campaigns are about ideas. During campaigns, candidates condense a particular point of view about the world and try to build a majority around it. Not Machiavelli, but the great ethical and moral philosophers of the West, from Plato to John Stuart Mill, posed timeless questions of truth, justice, and right and wrong that all political candidates, however hesitatingly, have to try to answer.

The presidential campaign of 2000 managed to keep philosophy fairly well hidden. Afraid that any traits of character could later be used as evidence of bad character, both Al Gore and George W. Bush refused to offer even a glimpse of themselves as flesh-and-blood human beings, obfuscating any hints of how their personal attributes might translate into conceptions of the right way to act. Seeking to rally their base while attracting as many of the undecided voters as possible, both chose reiteration over reflection, avoiding statements of principle and purpose at any cost.

One big happy family

Wed, 25 Nov 1998 20:00:00 +0000

Four years after a new class of self-proclaimed Republican "revolutionaries" was swept into Congress promising a new morality in America, exit polls showed that 40 percent of voters on Nov. 3 who called themselves religious conservatives actually supported Democrats. Of all the surprises contained in the 1998 election results, this may be the most significant. For it puts to rest the idea that lurking out there in America is a lumbering beast of political and religious reaction just waiting for the trumpets to summon it to battle against the forces of secular humanism and moral relativism.

Fed up with what they understood to be widespread moral decline in America, organizations like Ralph Reed's Christian Coalition -- the politically astute successor to Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority -- raised funds, rallied voters, recruited candidates and provided the ideological zeal for a moral crusade. At its roots was a belief that America had lost its traditional moorings in Judeo-Christianity, and that loss had led to increased rates of divorce, abortion, crime, alienation, homosexuality and a lack of national purpose. Only through committed political action, the Christian right held -- opposition to abortion, a return of prayer to schools and the teaching of firm standards of right and wrong -- could America once again be made morally whole.

One big happy family

Wed, 25 Nov 1998 19:09:00 +0000