Here’s Mr. Yuval Levin’s very interesting new essay on American character in a crisis, focusing on American achievements during the epidemic. He talks about the gov’t spending money to prevent an economic crisis, the testing problem, & vaccines. Here’s the governing thought of the essay:
Americans don’t mobilize into order—we mobilize into action, & our modes of mobilized action are often very disorderly. It’s in our character. Some of our greatest successes in this crisis have come when decision-makers have recognized that fact. The legislative response to the virus was not a set of rules for Americans to follow, but a set of resources for Americans to deploy. The health-system response did not set strict criteria for triage; it built respirators by the thousands & put enormous field hospitals in parks & football stadiums. The vaccine deployment began with a futile attempt to prioritize recipients, but it ultimately succeeded as a vast, chaotic dissemination of doses to every pharmacy & supermarket in the country.
Meanwhile, some of our greatest failures have come when decision-makers have insisted on ignoring the character of our society or blindly wishing it were otherwise. Attempts to manipulate people into behaving with restraint by shading the truth about caseloads, risks, or masks have frequently backfired, & with good reason. The better part of statesmanship is understanding the nature of the people you seek to govern. Technical expertise can never substitute for political judgment on that front, & public-health officials can never substitute for elected leaders who know their voters & who understand what our society does well & poorly.
Throughout, Mr. Levin is forced by his argument to ignore the deep troubles of American partisanship—he analyzes that divide in his work on Burke & Paine, The Great Debate—but his conservatism still comes out in his advice to elites, not to wish to change the character of American society, which Mr. Levin seems to identify with the character of the American people. His skepticism of scientific expertise also points to conservatism—to skepticism of Progress, or grand solutions… But he primarily presents the conflict in American politics since 2020 as though the media & politicians (except in their capacity as Congressmen passing spending bills) were getting in the way of the people—one almost comes to feel sorry that all these people in the media are so confused about what they should be doing, including politicians in the media! Let’s go a step forward: The innocents—these comical fools—do they not see that they’re out of touch with the American people? If you allow this caricature, you will see that this argument tends to the conclusion that it’s all one big misunderstanding—not a fundamental disagreement, not even a serious one—people have ended up hating each other & wishing each other dead, but it’s just because of a misunderstanding. After all, liberals look to scientific expertise because they have good intentions…
I believe Mr. Levin’s argument is broadly unpersuasive. Since he’s writing in Commentary, it would be very difficult to prove otherwise: Next to no one who would need persuading is going to even read it. Moreover, liberals, Progressives, & lefties do not themselves make any version of his argument to my knowledge, perhaps because they do not believe it & do not think their audience would, either. Mr. Levin, it goes without saying, does not offer references to other notable politicians or political writers who agree. Perhaps a very liberal thing to do would be to write a public letter, a manifesto, some way for notable people to let us all know their opinions—but I do not dare to hope.
Mr. Levin, of course, knows that, when we analyze human phenomena, we start by looking at how the people involved understand themselves. Their own opinions count, & come first. But he refrains from such analysis when it comes to the very important cases of elite institutions that do not behave as he would like or as a concern for the common good would require. It rarely makes sense to suggest that an important institution is acting against self-interest, or a vast number of people. Surely, people determine that for themselves, without even the advice of the wiser among us, like Mr. Levin? One can call the media institutions unjust, since that’s a public problem we’re all involved in & have a right to speak about; but that would be harsh, adversarial. Can we then say they’re all sadly confused—do they really not know what they’re about? How do they keep at their work & how come their bosses, clients, &c. don’t let them know their faults! Again, allow the caricature to reveal that a certain kind of decency in the consideration of political matters leads to an abstraction from how men & associations act, how they see themselves & their adversaries. One can by gentle thought come to the opinion that one can advise even or especially people who do not trust one.
Honest partisanship is comparatively more adequate to political analysis; as partisans, we think our adversaries are doing wrong, but not that they are acting without purpose or cluelessly—they can be many things to us, but never innocent. I read Mr. Levin as almost saying, forgive them, for they know not what they do… This is no criticism of the essay—the requirements of the argument are, I believe, very strict, & the point, that we have ignored in an unreasonable way achievements & successes is good. There should at least be more bragging…
To prove my point about the strange, abstract character of the patriotism at the core of Mr. Levin’s argument, it will not suffice to notice that liberals refuse to embrace it: We must ask ourselves, do conservatives? On this side, too, the problems with the media & politicians in the media abound. &, too, we notice the failure among public figures to make such arguments. Conservatives these days take a populist stance & so you’d expect them to approve of this argument about national character; if anything, conservatives should embrace it & radicalize its criticism of elites mad with power. But the mobilization for action argument is premised on success & a certain satisfaction with how things are going in America—as Mr. Levin says, we should worry that there’s nothing of this kind in politics. Conservatism has not embraced or even accepted this gratitude for success & this pride in success as part of its politics. Correspondingly, Mr. Levin does not accept political passions as part of his argument.
Finally, Mr. Levin does not seem to raise the question, do the things that make sense to him & the things that do not make sense to him come together—do they make sense together as a regime? That’s much more plausible, given that he criticizes institutions without which American life is unimaginable. The media do mediate between D.C. & the rest of America… He himself suggests, politicians as Congressmen have done well, or well enough—but as media figures, they are part of the problem. Well, TV as such then is the problem. Americans are hurting themselves by their unwillingness to turn their backs on their TVs. But if TV’s part of the American way of life, it cannot be wished way, it must be integrated into the analysis of society.
There is a velvet-gloved delivery of a fundamental criticism of the CDC towards he end, and insofar as the piece serves moments like that, it does good work. But overall, a weird kind of faith in wonkery, or a call to celebrate wonk-policy success, is at work in this. Yuval's point about actual Katrina-success when objectively considered is important, but unlike a lot of factors still uncertain about CV-19 and the vaccines, a hurricane is a hurricane, and people evacuated to high ground are people evacuated to high ground. And the piece simply dismisses the argument that CV-19 response across the world has exposed/brought to the fore patterns of managerial despotism, and that THAT is the bigger danger than the virus, as a predetermined conclusion and a function of "polarization." Uh, but what if it's...er, true? Sorry, but the momentous nature of what is happening in Australia, and to a lesser degree anywhere, like our NYC and major corps, that are utilizing vax passports and firings of the unvaxxed, cannot at all be explained by nor dealt with by "people should listen to wonks more!" and "people should read polarizing writers less!" I guess you write about what's on your beat, and so Yuval's obliged to talk about a thing I could care less about, whether Belgium and such did slightly better than the US on one of the CV-19 metrics, as if it is something important.
Carl, I largely agree--as I tried to show, I find it hard to find Mr. Levin's audience. I don't doubt he deserves more of a hearing, nor do I have enough knowledge of the various readerships of the magazines involved, or influence in politics. Within the limits of an outsider, I try to figure out how successful this approach to patriotism is. You & Paul aren't the audience. Who might be? Of course, I admire Mr. Levin, enjoy our conversations, & read him with interest, but I don't think he writes essays for my sake. Are there lots of people who care about politics in America who listen to the important things he says, who are interested in the less important things he offers as reassurance? I hope to hear from his admirers; if I will face of deluge of emails & comments, I'd be much reassured.
You of course are right that Mr. Levin is against the CDC, against the media elites trying to transform the nation through intimidation, & against Progress. But you're also right about the velvet glove.