Welcome, dear reader!
Hi, welcome to the first post in the Thinking Aloud substack. I read a lot of these niche newsletters and have been itching to start my own. This is a place where I will publish notes on books and articles I’m reading, mini-essays on topics like political theory and public policy, moral philosophy, and Augustinian theology. I’ll also plug my pieces that get published elsewhere. And hopefully, I’ll also feature my friends’ writings too. I’ll try to publish something weekly, but you know how these things can go. So sign up to receive each new edition in your email! :)
A brief word about myself: I’m an Assistant Teacher at Main Line Classical where I teach a language-arts enrichment class, assist in math classes, and monitor lunch and recess periods. I’m also a prolific writer, and you can find my work at publications like The American Conservative, University Bookman, Forma Journal, and Ethika Politika. You can follow me on Twitter: @AnthonyMBarr
The Technocrat Temptation…
I am an Elizabeth Warren supporter. This essay will be critical, not so much of Warren herself, but of her campaign branding. But more importantly, this is a critique of my own propensity to think about the world as though it were a chessboard and myself as though I were a chess master ordering pieces according to my own vision of the good. To furnish the critique, I’m gonna pull a lot from Adam Smith (wealth of nations, etc.) in his book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, originally published in 1759. But before I do that, I want to look at a Shakespearean tragedy.
I always feel bad for Coriolanus. He’s a skillful Roman leader with a plan to save the day, and the only problem is that those pesky plebeians keep thwarting him at every turn. The tragedy for Shakespeare’s Coriolanus is not that he is condescending: we know instinctively that not everyone is equally a good leader, that not every person is equipped with the insight or knowledge to run a republic. A leader who condescends in love is a good leader. No, the problem is that Coriolanus is one of those types who loves humanity as an abstraction but despises his neighbor. And so the tragedy begins in arrogance, an unshakable belief that he knows better than everyone else, and this arrogance tempts Coriolanus to despise the Common Man leading to poisoned relationships, leading to resentment, banishment, betrayal, violence and on it goes. Now, this is a tragedy, which means a sense of fatalism pervades: a smart man who must stay in the good graces of people who are decidedly his intellectual inferior but would never want to admit that, how could this not end in a “basket of deplorables” soundbite that ruins everything?
Here is Adam Smith on the arrogance that marks Coriolanus:
… To erect his own judgment into the supreme standard of right and wrong…to fancy himself the only wise and worthy man in the commonwealth, and that his fellow-citizens should accommodate themselves to him and not he to them….
I think that Elizabeth Warren is a more prudent public figure than Hillary Clinton. In fact, the comparison point for me is Barrack Obama, poised, graceful, magnanimous, though easily the Smartest Guy in The Room most of the time. But recall that even the even-tempered and generally upbeat Obama had his infamous “cling to guns and religion” gaffe. It turns out that despising others is a temptation always near at hand.
Look, Warren is really smart. Even the Republicans like Senator Cotton that she’s taught in law school will tell you that (on the record!) And the only reason she can get away with the “I have a plan for that” branding is because she really does have a lot of plans. The question is, are we drawn to Warren because her ideas animate us on their merits, or are we drawn to Warren as an Intellectual Strong-Man, someone who reassures that a Really Smart Person can actually solve every problem we experience through government programs, services, studies.
And the question Warren should probably ask herself is this: “am I campaigning to strengthen American institutions as a bulwark for the nation’s flourishing, or am I running because I think I am indispensable and my ideas are indispensable, and really it’s all about Me and My Ideas?” Because a folksy smile and even-handed tone doesn’t always indicate a lack of arrogance.
Writing for The New Republic, Rachel Hawley puts it this way: “‘She Has a Plan For That” romanticizes the idea of having ideas as a core characteristic, rather than focusing on the ideological common denominator of the ideas themselves.” Hawley warns that “simply having a slogan that nostalgically recalls that fervid period of policy development will not be sufficient either. For Warren to get any of her plans enacted, she will have to marshal the citizenry into a force of civic engagement, rallying them to work that needs doing, not plans already filed.”
I think Warren has technocratic tendencies, and I think I am so enamored with her because I have those tendencies too. Here is Adam Smith on the nature of the technocrat, the Man of System, who thinks of the world as a problem waiting to be solved:
The man of system…is often so enamored with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it…He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board.
The point I want to make here is that Warren supporters like myself open ourselves up to tragedy if we don’t hold our technocratic tendencies in check. At worst, these tendencies can lead us to despise, resent, and hate those we deem (sometimes accurately) less knowledgeable than ourselves. But even if we avoid that trap, allowing these tendencies to go unchecked can lead us to a flawed view of the world, a view where we as the Dynamic Personality are front and center and the enduring institutions that really hold society together (families, churches, schools) become props on a state set by us and for us.
And so here is one more quote from Smith, outlining a better model of leadership, and a better internal model for ourselves. The good leader…
may assume the greatest and noblest of all characters, that of the reformer and legislator of a great state; and, by the wisdom of his institutions, secure the internal tranquility and happiness of his fellow-citizens for many succeeding generations.
I wonder how much healthier our politics would be if we took this to heart. Imagine a republic whose leaders knew that the strength and stability of institutions is the hallmark of good leadership, institutions that were here before us and, we pray, will endure long after we are gone.
What I Am Reading Elsewhere:
Gracy Olmstead’s newsletter is essential reading: in this most recent iteration, Jake Meadows considers debt, contingency: “We accrue debts to the land, to our family, to our neighbors, and we service that debt through love and fidelity. Our living, our making of things, is an act of honoring the debts we owe to one another and to our places as human beings.” https://mailchi.mp/32267aaf3acf/what-are-the-consequences-of-living-debt-free
One of my favorite contemporary poets, James Matthew Wilson, just released a haunting poem on childhood and circus elephants for America Magazine: https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2019/11/01/circus-elephant
The Dispatch is an indispensable guide to current political events, and features great writing from respected conservatives like David French. In this recent edition, Brendan Buck, former counselor to House Speaker Paul Ryan, laments: “Thoughtful legislating is not rewarded anymore. We are now in an era of entertainment politics, and if you want to work your way up through the system, the answer no longer is learning policy, putting your time in at the committee level, becoming a legislator. The way to get ahead now is to go on television and use hyperbole and say crazy things.” https://thedispatch.com/p/the-morning-dispatch-does-the-gop?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyODUwNjU2LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxNTk0NzMsIl8iOiI2dms1MCIsImlhdCI6MTU3MjYxODYyNywiZXhwIjoxNTcyNjIyMjI3LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTc0NTUiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.4NPfNgXaTLMF0ib-hU2QUpeWLXu3Z-KbCTgMbLKSw0o
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