Previous - 168. Francis Perkins
Eisenhower
Here's something I missed first time around,p33 That concept -- conquering your own soul -- was a significant one in the moral ecology in which Eisenhower grew up. It was based on the the idea that deep inside we are dual in our nature. We are fallen, but also splendidly endowed. We have a side to our nature that is sinful -- selfish, deceiving, and self-serving -- but we have another side to our nature that is in God's image, that seeks transcendence and virtue. The essential drama of life is the drama to construct character, which is an engraved set of disciplined habits, a settled disposition to do good. The cultivation of Adam II was seen as a necessary foundation for Adam I to flourish.
Adam2 as essential for Adam1 - Let me start with that bit at the end. This makes much more sense to me than seeing Adam2 as seeking a more profound connection with the meaning of life. The goal here is to create better, more successful bourgeoisie.
God's image - Now back to what first attracted my attention to this passage. What if our nature isn't "dual" at all? What if we haven't "fallen?" What if we are just naturally "sinful" in these terms, and the purpose of religion is to create, out of whole cloth, this other side of our nature that is in "God's image?" Not only do we invent God but we invent a nature for ourselves that is not really natural in any meaningful sense of the word.
I can't think of any argument against this kind of moral indoctrination... up to the point where the indoctrination starts to include hate and intolerance. Ida Eisenhower, as she is presented here, is actually the perfect exemplar for this interpretation of religion, down to her own tolerance and refusal to wear a silly bonnet.
p36 He goes on to talk about the importance of and cures for various sins in a community like Abilene, Kansas. He starts with anger (Dwight's problem) and lust. This pairing makes me think of Dmitri Karamazov. Dostoevsky would agree with Brooks about sin. And we can see in Dmitri a life at the mercy of his uncontrollable tendency to sin -- his Karamazov nature. And then there's lovely young Lise, the poster child for sin run wild. Dostoevsky does a poor job of making Russian Orthodox Christianity seem like the cure for sin in the Russian people. It almost looks like sin thrives in that context.
...adultery, bribery, and betrayal are more like treason than like crime; they damage the social order...
And speaking of the social and economic order, neither of these authors really addresses the correlation between behavior and the economic realities people exist in. In Russia this included the master and serf dynamic but also the status of women, not to mention the rising middle class influence Dostoevsky hated so much.
And then we get a picture of Dwight in the military that makes it sound like all this upbringing did him little if any good. Still struggling with his anger. Not particularly happy in his own skin. Certainly not a person I would want to be.
Moderation
p69 I actually stopped reading this section yesterday to resume fresh today, because I wasn't getting what Brooks meant by moderation. In political terms he's talking about something very similar to Edmund Burke's position, where the danger of going to extremes is so... extreme that you have to seek a middle course that isn't too radical or too reactionary. Conservative in the true (my) sense of the term.
But, interestingly, he's going beyond this macro level to a micro level of the personal commonwealth, as it were. A radical personality like Dmitri can't achieve anything because he is swept away by his passions. But a person who completely locks down his passions can't achieve anything either. You need a middle position where the passions are harnessed. That's if you want to achieve anything significant.
I have to credit Brooks here as I hadn't thought of moderation in these terms before. On the other hand, it may have been the Gay Pride festivities over the weekend that brought to my attention that much of what Brooks has said about character "building" and "pruning" would apply to closeted homosexuals not letting their true character show. If you re-read this chapter substituting "gay feelings" for "sin" you get a playbook for gay conversion therapy.
And having said what I did above about moderation and Burke, it should come as no surprise that I agree with Eisenhower's moderation vs JFK's optimism in their respective speeches in January 1961. Kennedy's inauguration speech did what such a speech is supposed to do, inspire the electorate toward the creation of a better nation and world. Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex, the scientific-technological elite, and warned, "avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow." Look who was playing Casandra?
And look how easy it is to see Faust in this. What Eisenhower warned against (and Dostoevsky, too) was the middle class, Faustian striving with its ever ignored or downplayed unintended consequences/side effects/collateral damage. And isn't JFK a perfect Faust? Ambitious, striving for both exuberant life and great achievements. Willing to make unscrupulous compromises for power (like staying in Vietnam.)
No comments:
Post a Comment