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It's
rare to hear self-doubt from political moderns. Therefore,
appreciate while you can the confessions of Rev. Alan Taylor.
Rev.
Taylor preaches at a Chicago temple of the Unitarian Universalist
church. The Unitarians are one of the most liberal churches you're
likely to find. They describe themselves as "a living example of,
and a powerful voice for, liberal religion in America."
In
a sermon in
2004, Rev. Taylor spoke about a book he had read by a fellow
liberal, David Brooks, called
Bobos in
Paradise. Brooks' basic idea is that in the 1990s a new elite
emerged who combined wealth with free-spirited creativity. He calls
this new elite "bourgeois bohemians" or, more simply, "Bobos".
Brooks
self-identifies as one of these "Bobos", as does the Rev. Taylor who
admitted:
"Rarely
do I read a book like Bobos in
Paradise and say, they're talking about me, about so many
religious liberals, and about most of the folks with whom I
graduated from college in 1990."
Which
brings us to the self-doubt.
The
Bobos are political moderns. The basic idea of such modernism is
that we are made human when we are free to create ourselves through
our own individual choices. This means that the aim of politics is
to achieve an individual "freedom" in which there are no impediments
to "individual choice."
I have
pointed out many times that this way of looking at things, as good
as it sounds, doesn't work out as it's supposed to.
One
reason for this is the following problem. If the aim is to allow me
to create who I am by my own choices, then anything which influences
me in an important way, but which I don't choose, must be rejected.
But this
means that it is exactly the deeper things which must be rejected,
as it is these which are most likely to be part of an inherited
tradition or a biological nature, placing them outside the realm of
individual choice.
For
instance, my masculine nature as a man is something that I didn't
choose, but was born into. Therefore, political moderns think it
ought to be made not to matter. Political moderns admire men who act
outside of, or contrary to, such an inherited nature.
As a
result of considering things this way, modernism leaves us with an
abundance of choices, but only of a shallow nature (such as consumer
choices). The deeper, really important things are rejected as being
a "biological destiny" or a "traditional role" and so on.
What do
political moderns think about the shallow range of lifestyle choices
they have limited themselves to? Usually, the topic isn't raised.
But Rev. Taylor, and David Brooks, aren't entirely comfortable
living so lightly. Hence the self-doubt.
The Rev.
says:
"Here in
Oak Park it is challenging. We live in a community that caters to
the upper middle-class. The value of maximizing freedom reigns
supreme, but there are forces that undermine sustained
connections...
"I have
lived a quintessentially Bobo life ... If these trends continue ...
my life will be a series of light, ultimately inconsequential and
therefore meaningless connections. But I will have a lot of them!
And that's just it, when we Bobos maximize our freedom, depth and
meaning elude us."
"And so
what we get in Bobo life, Brooks says, is 'a world of many options,
but not a life of solid commitments, and maybe not a life that
ever offers access to the profoundest truths, deepest emotions, or
highest aspirations. Maybe in the end the problem with this
attempt to reconcile freedom with commitment, virtue with affluence,
autonomy with community is not that it leads to some catastrophic
crack-up or some picturesque slide into immorality and decadence,
but rather that it leads to too many compromises and spiritual
fudges. Maybe people who try to have endless choices end up with
semi-commitments and semi-freedoms. Maybe we will end up leading
a life that is moderate but flat, our souls being colored with
shades of gray, as we find nothing heroic, nothing inspiring,
nothing that brings our lives to a point. Some days I look around
and I think we have been able to achieve these reconciliations only
by making ourselves more superficial, by simply ignoring the deeper
thoughts and highest ideals that would torture us if we actually
stopped to measure ourselves according to them.'"
The Rev.
Taylor believes that the following quote from Brooks also captures
this "shadow side" of political modernism,
"Bobos
pay lip-service to the virtues of tradition, roots, community.
However, when push comes to shove, they tend to choose personal
choice over other commitments ... And this is self-defeating,
because at the end of all this movement and freedom and
self-exploration, they find that they have nothing deep and lasting
to hold on to."
Surprisingly for a Unitarian, the Rev. Taylor even looks back to the
following lost religious tradition to underline his point:
"The
monk in the monastery does not lead an experimental life, but
perhaps he is able to lead a profound one."
And
isn't this a worthier aim? To live profoundly, within a world and a
nature we did not create, rather than skittling life down to those
things we can choose freely as autonomous individuals, but which
don't count for much.
Some
political moderns might object that they would lose their
"individuality" in a world where individual autonomy was not the
overriding principle. But their fear is unfounded in my opinion.
A man
who is connected to the more profound aspects of his own nature will
almost inevitably express a stronger and more confident
individuality, than someone whose existence revolves around mere
lifestyle choices.
In any
event, we should be grateful that the Rev. Taylor and David Brooks
are willing to admit the self-doubt they feel about the
superficiality and rootlessness in the lives of political moderns.
It helps
our case as conservatives when even insiders are willing to
acknowledge this fault within liberal societies.
Related article:
The ultimate freedom
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