8/1/2025

 Friday, August 1, 2025

D+266/194/1267

1959 Pope John XXIII published the encyclical Sacerdotii nostri primordia

In bed at 10:30, up at 5:30, with some bad pains in the right shoulder.   

Meds, etc.  Morning meds at 9:30 a.m.  No Trulicicty injection because of Tuesday's surgery.   

David Brooks, Pontificator.  In his July 31 NY Times column, David Brooks shared his insight into "The Crucial Issue of the 21st Century."  "The central argument of this century is over who can best strengthen the social order. In this contest, the Republicans have their champions and the Democrats aren't even on the field."  I have written in these pages before that I just can't warm up to David Brooks, in large measure because he seems so smug.  He purports to see issues from 30,000 feet, looking down with x-ray vision, seeing problems and their root causes, and offering solutions in grand, broad terms.  Although there are, as there always are, some basic truths in his analysis, like American society has many very serious problems, he writes about them at such a level of abstraction that he makes his proposed solutions useless, mere blather.

He argues that America's social order is fractured, and he bases this on the level of dissatisfaction Americans have with the way things are going in the country, the direction we're heading, the levels of distrust and antipathy we have for one another.  He argues that 'politics is downstream from culture', and that we are so politically riven precisely because we are so socially and culturally decaying.

Millions of Americans believe that this is where we are. They see families splinter or never form, neighborhood life decay, churches go empty, friends die of addictions, downtowns become vacant, a national elite grow socially and morally detached. We have privatized morality so that there are no longer shared values. The educated-class institutions have grown increasingly left wing and can sometimes feel like a hostile occupying army to other Americans.

He shows his conservative bias in these thoughts and avoids addressing the causes of these downward social developments.  Basically, he blames them on Liberalism and Democrats.

Republicans have more quickly understood these new circumstances because conservatives instinctively understand that policy is downstream from culture. They instinctively understand the primary importance of the pre-political; those covenantal bonds that precede individual choice — your commitment to family, God, nation and community. They understand, as Edmund Burke argued, that manners and morals are more important than laws. The social order is the primary social reality.

He concludes that the traditional divide between Republicans and Democrats over the size and function of government is passé and the dominant issue of the century is "who can best strengthen the social order."  What does this mean?

In this morning's Times, Ezra Klein piece, "The Book That Explains JD Vance’s Worldview," consists of his interview of Yoram Hazony, the author of “The Virtue of Nationalism.”  He introduces the interview with his own take on J. D. Vance's Christian Nationalism, his "othering" of people who are not like him or who disagree with his politics, and mostly, his opposition and antipathy to diversity.

America in ’25 is more diverse than it has ever been. And yet the institutions that take this incredibly diverse country and form culture are weaker than they have ever been. While our elites tell us that diversity is our greatest strength, they destroy the very institutions that allow us to thrive and build a common sense of purpose and meaning as Americans.

Vance's point, and that of Klein's interviewee Hazony, seems pretty clearly to be that America would be broadly better off if it consisted of many more native-born Americans and many fewer immigrants, especially non-European, non-White, non-Christian immigrants.  This is not surprising, of course; it's been clear since Trump's first speech in 2015 announcing his presidential candidacy and deploring Mexican 'criminals, and rapists.'  It's the underlying justification for the policy of mass deportation.  I find myself wondering, however, whether this isn't also the underlying theory of Brooks' piece, though I'm sure he would foreswear it.  Does Brooks also see America's breakdown of social order, which he decries, as a consequence of diversity?  He argues that "poltitics is downstream of culture" (something he says conservatives understand and appreciate and liberals don't), and that American culture is broken.  

 [A]ll humans need to grow up in a secure container, within which they can craft their lives. The social order consists of a stable family, a safe and coherent neighborhood, a vibrant congregational and civic life, a reliable body of laws, a set of shared values that neighbors can use to build healthy communities and a conviction that there exists moral truth.

Aren't all those social goods made easier in a relatively or highly homogeneous society?  Why do the Finns and Swedes and other Scandinavians always rank so high in terms of happiness and satisfaction with their lives?  In large measure, it is because of their social welfare systems, which are made possible precisely because of their homogeneity, i.e., their lack of diversity.  We ought not fool ourselves: the reason we do not have an adequate social safety net in the United States is precisely because of diversity, especially racial diversity, and more especially because of White Supremacy, and discrimination against Blacks.  Majority Whites have historically resisted providing White-funded benefits to 'undeserving,' 'shiftless,' 'lazy' Blacks.  "Welfare queens," and all that.  The Democratic Party and Liberalism are identified not only with racial minorities but also with other 'marginalized' segments of the populace, LGBTQ, the handicapped, the poor, et al.  The Republican Party and Conservatism are identified largely with Whites, indeed, well-off Whites.  I have long believed that America's domestic policies are developed always with eye to Race.  Any policy that tends to transfer wealth from the White majority to Black and other minorities has a tough uphill battle to passage.  Christian Nationalism is basically a White Supremacy movement.  I don't know where to go with these thoughts because I'm not thinking very clearly today.  I can't tie this in with Brooks' essay other than to wonder whether his conservatism and low opinion of Liberalism and the Democrats isn't to some extent at least, grounded on a sympathy for White Nationalism.