If I were asked to name ten essayists who write on American politics, or ten American essayists who write on politics, one of the names on that list would be Christopher Caldwell. I recommend especially his latest essay in CRB: Did The Court Actually Abolish Affirmative Action? This is an extension of his broad argument in Age of Entitlement, that American politics is now defined by a constitutional conflict. The old Constitution of 1787 v. the living Constitution of the 20th c., especially since the ‘60s. The first American constitution protected equal liberty, meaning Americans were largely free of state supervision. The second American constitution is defined by the opposite attitude, various elite figures continuously using the police power of the state, especially regulation & the courts, to coerce private citizens into obeying a new vision of politics. The old Constitution is almost sacred, but not quite; it’s often under attack, but rarely directly. It cannot be repealed, but it is weakened by constantly being associated with racism. The new Constitution is partly illegal, but partly legalized, especially as civil rights, usually created at the Supreme Court, but announced prophetically in academia & the liberal media.
In his new essay, Caldwell has a very good explanation of the problem as it still affects us, in the case of affirmative action, recently before the Supreme Court, but also many other cases. I have four quotes for you:
Civil rights were meant to vindicate the claims of the 14th Amendment—by giving a “substantive” power to equal protection of the laws. But it did so by narrowing the scope of the First Amendment—by spelling out that the right of freedom of assembly would no longer be understood as guaranteeing freedom of association.
Here’s an example of the new kind of question that arose:
Did an Italian restaurant owner have to hire non-Italian waiters? Probably not.
How to know, however? Especially of importance to big institutions, which look to make sure to avoid dangerous attention by the gov’t. We can formulate this new drama as a principle, especially for the universities, & therefore access to the American elite:
Freedom is often at odds with inclusion, & academic excellence is often at odds with diversity.
The pretense that this isn’t so has led to endless obfuscation, lies, & so now elites need to blame the rest of America for the problem. This all leads to the most important statement in Caldwell’s article:
Today, the diversity motive vies with the profit motive as the mainspring of American economic life.
This is something worth pondering a long time while you read the essay & then some more. Our political catastrophe is very much tied up with the need to create an elite at the expense of the American past & the people, who are still dedicated to it, or at least used to it, or reliant on it.
I will be doing a talk and a write-up about the affirmative action decision too, soon. Very glad to read this Caldwell article, thanks for the heads-up, Titus