[Vision2020] Party of Strivers

Fri Aug 31 10:45:31 PDT 2012

How is Ayn Rand's philosophy basically correct? Do you think the poor
are lazy? Do you disagree that some people have a bad lot and without
some kind of outside assistance, they are unlikely to realize the
American dream? If so, then Rand is just plain wrong. Tweaking her
view to allow for compassion is in this case equivalent to rejecting
her view. That is what separates Rand's philosophy from the kind of
view that Brooks is suggesting. Brooks' offers a much better, more
realistic take on humanity, as I see it. Joe

On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 10:18 AM, lfalen <lfalen at turbonet.com> wrote:
> I am not a big fan of David Brooks, but this is not a bad article. I like Rice also. I have some problems with Ayn Rand. Her philosophy is basicly correct, but it need s to be tempered by some compassion, which she seems to lack.
> Roger
> -----Original message-----
> From: Art Deco art.deco.studios at gmail.com
> Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2012 03:51:28 -0700
> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Subject: [Vision2020] Party of Strivers
>
>>   [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>
>>
>> <http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&opzn&page=www.nytimes.com/printer-friendly&pos=Position1&sn2=336c557e/4f3dd5d2&sn1=34aeaaa2/80e4ddbc&camp=FSL2012_ArticleTools_120x60_1787508c_nyt5&ad=BOSW_120x60_June13_NoText&goto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efoxsearchlight%2Ecom%2Fbeastsofthesouthernwild>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> August 30, 2012
>> Party of Strivers By DAVID
>> BROOKS<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/davidbrooks/index.html>
>>
>> America was built by materialistic and sometimes superficial strivers. It
>> was built by pioneers who voluntarily subjected themselves to stone-age
>> conditions on the frontier fired by dreams of riches. It was built by
>> immigrants who crammed themselves into hellish tenements because they
>> thought it would lead, for their children, to big houses, big cars and big
>> lives.
>>
>> America has always been defined by this ferocious commercial energy, this
>> zealotry for self-transformation, which leads its citizens to vacation
>> less, work longer, consume more and invent more.
>>
>> Many Americans, and many foreign observers, are ambivalent about or
>> offended by this driving material ambition. Read “The Great Gatsby.” Read
>> D.H. Lawrence on Benjamin Franklin.
>>
>> But today’s Republican Party unabashedly celebrates this ambition and
>> definition of success. Speaker after speaker at the convention in Tampa,
>> Fla., celebrated the striver, who started small, struggled hard, looked
>> within and became wealthy. Speaker after speaker argued that this ideal of
>> success is under assault by Democrats who look down on strivers, who
>> undermine self-reliance with government dependency, who smother ambition
>> under regulations.
>>
>> Republicans promised to get government out of the way. Reduce the burden of
>> debt. Offer Americans an open field and a fair chance to let their ambition
>> run.
>>
>> If you believe, as I do, that American institutions are hitting a creaky
>> middle age, then you have a lot of time for this argument. If you believe
>> that there has been a hardening of the national arteries caused by a
>> labyrinthine tax code, an unsustainable Medicare program and a suicidal
>> addiction to deficits, then you appreciate this streamlining agenda, even
>> if you don’t buy into the whole Ayn Rand-influenced gospel of wealth.
>>
>> On the one hand, you see the Republicans taking the initiative, offering
>> rejuvenating reform. On the other hand, you see an exhausted Democratic
>> Party, which says: We don’t have an agenda, but we really don’t like
>> theirs. Given these options, the choice is pretty clear.
>>
>> But there is a flaw in the vision the Republicans offered in Tampa. It is
>> contained in its rampant hyperindividualism. Speaker after speaker
>> celebrated the solitary and heroic individual. There was almost no talk of
>> community and compassionate conservatism. There was certainly no
>> conservatism as Edmund Burke understood it, in which individuals are
>> embedded in webs of customs, traditions, habits and governing institutions.
>>
>> Today’s Republicans strongly believe that individuals determine their own
>> fates. In a Pew Research Center
>> poll<http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/04/partisan-polarization-surges-in-bush-obama-years/>,
>> for example, 57 percent of Republicans believe people are poor because they
>> don’t work hard. Only 28 percent believe people are poor because of
>> circumstances beyond their control. These Republicans believe that if only
>> government gets out of the way, then people’s innate qualities will enable
>> them to flourish.
>>
>> But there’s a problem. I see what the G.O.P. is offering the engineering
>> major from Purdue or the business major from Arizona State. The party is
>> offering skilled people the freedom to run their race. I don’t see what the
>> party is offering the waitress with two kids, or the warehouse worker whose
>> wages have stagnated for a decade, or the factory worker whose skills are
>> now obsolete.
>>
>> The fact is our destinies are shaped by social forces much more than the
>> current G.O.P. is willing to admit. The skills that enable people to
>> flourish are not innate but constructed by circumstances.
>>
>> Government does not always undermine initiative. Some government programs,
>> like the G.I. Bill, inflame ambition. Others depress it. What matters is
>> not whether a program is public or private but its effect on character.
>> Today’s Republicans, who see every government program as a step on the road
>> to serfdom, are often blind to that. They celebrate the race to success but
>> don’t know how to give everyone access to that race.
>>
>> The wisest speech departed from the prevailing story line. It was delivered
>> by Condoleezza Rice. It echoed an older, less libertarian conservatism,
>> which harkens back to Washington, Tocqueville and Lincoln. The powerful
>> words in her speech were not “I” and “me” — the heroic individual They
>> were “we” and “us” — citizens who emerge out of and exist as participants
>> in a great national project.
>>
>> Rice celebrated material striving but also larger national goals — the long
>> national struggle to extend benefits and mobilize all human potential. She
>> subtly emphasized how our individual destinies are dependent upon the
>> social fabric and upon public institutions like schools, just laws and our
>> mission in the world. She put less emphasis on commerce and more on
>> citizenship.
>>
>> Today’s Republican Party may be able to perform useful tasks with its
>> current hyperindividualistic mentality. But its commercial soul is too
>> narrow. It won’t be a worthy governing party until it treads the course
>> Lincoln trod: starting with individual ambition but ascending to a larger
>> vision and creating a national environment that arouses ambition and
>> nurtures success.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
>> art.deco.studios at gmail.com
>>
>>
>
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