Great because good
For those who are old enough to remember the pre Ronald Reagan era, you may remember a different era of political persuasion. In my opinion, the new era that we live in is best summarized by a line from Hillary Clinton. In her speech accepting the Democratic nomination for President, she declared
In the end, it comes down to what Donald Trump does not get. America is great because American is good.
Secy Clinton used this line (great because good) often in her campaign. The first person to use this line was Gen. Eisenhower. Speaking in 1953, Gen. Eisenhower described a “wise French visitor who came to America seeking the source of America’s success”. Eisenhower quotes this visitor (Alexis D. Tocqueville) as “Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good. And if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great”
Presidents Ford, Reagan and GHWB Bush all used variants of this “great because good line”, generally while speaking in front of religious crowds. President Reagan used the exact same Alexis Tocqueville quote as Gen. Eisenhower in 1984. Never mind that this famous Alexis Toqueville quote is most likely false. You now have 2 Presidents who have quoted it so, so it might as well be true.
In the 1990s, as part of his attempt to fashion a “new democrat”, President Clinton also started using this “great because good” line. At this point, it is almost an axiomatic statement for the college educated voting block that America is already great because America is good. By contrast, Trump supporters form the holdouts ~ America is good, but needs to be made great again.
The downside to “great because good”
If you accept the “great because good” formulation for nations, then it becomes difficult to not accept a similar formulation for individuals. Individuals are great (i.e., rich, or powerful) if they are good; individuals are not rich (i.e. poor) and not powerful if they are not good. If you accept this formulation for individuals, then it becomes difficult to support welfare measures on compassion grounds alone. It also becomes easy to accept that our misfortunes are a result of our wickedness. Hurricane Katrina is God’s punishment for our gay lifestyle, for instance. The list of such obvious contra-indications goes on and on. But, despite it’s downside, we have implicitly come to accept this “great because good” formulation.
You can gauge the success of the “great because good” formulation when liberals accepted means testing (and other measures) to limit the welfare benefits given to poor individuals. Lyndon Johnson’s new deal gets replaced with a raw deal.
And Palestinians don’t deserve a state because they haven’t been good.
The right side of history
Another consequence of this “great because good” rationale is an emphasis on being on the “right side of history”. Secular liberals have a hard time relating to the “great because good” moralizing, will more readily accept that we should be “on the right side of history”. Thus, starting with President Clinton, Democratic Presidents have increasingly used this phrase. President Clinton used this phrase 25 times. President Obama used it 32 times. President Biden likes to use a variant of this line. He likes to ask “will we hide from history, or will we make it”. For instance, speaking on slavery remembrance day, President Biden declared that “great nations dont hide from their history”. And speaking at a remembrance for John McCain, he quoted McCain declaring “Americans dont quit. Americans never hide from history. They make history”
Who is on the right side of history. Smart vs dumb !!
President Obama would often talk about “smart” policies that he favored (vs dumb ones that he did not). And “smart” people (i.e. technocrats in his worldview) who would help formulate the smart policies. This smart vs dumb formulation is supposed to put us on the “right side of history” (or in the great because good formulation. The question is: who is smart, and who is dumb. One way to think of the Trump MAGA movement is a rebellion against the smart vs dumb formulation ~ by default, the MAGA crowd has been relegated to dumb status in this formulation.
But President Obama has an interesting insight into this smart vs dumb formulation. Speaking in 2007 in front of Google employees, he declared that “the American people at their core are a decent people. There is a generosity of spirit there, and there is a common sense there, but it is not tapped”. This line, effectively means that Americans are inherently good, but their goodness is not being tapped. The reason “they are just misinformed, or they are too busy, they are trying to get their kids to school, they are working, they just dont have enough information”.
Americans are good, but they don't have enough information. If you give them enough information, then their goodness will be maximized. President Obama was going to give this information from the bully pulpit, and….. well… Maximize America’s Greatness Again (sorry...could not help that last pun =)
One consequence of having lived through 8 years of President Obama’s bully pulpit, and 3 years of President Biden’s bully pulpit should be a realization that Americans are not going to maximize their goodness if they are provided with just the right information. Americans are not any closer to goodness today than in 2007 when Senator Obama made that formulation. Something else is missing.
What happened in 1979
Most of the factoids I quoted above are from Michael Sandel’s Tyranny of Merit. He makes it clear that the post 1980 merit-based society we live in is very different from the pre 1980s America. So the question becomes: what happened in 1979.
Another author I would like to recommend is Kim Ghattas. She postulates that the last consequential year in world history was 1979, which was marked by 4 very impactful events: (1) Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (2) Iranian revolution and American Embassy hostage crisis (3) Siege of the Grand Mosque in Mecca & (4) Zia ul Haq coup in Pakistan, and execution of Prime Minister Bhutto.
As a direct consequence of these 4 events, Muslim society became much more radicalized. Iranians went from a secular dictatorship to a Shia theocracy, and Saudis went from a luxury loving House of Saud to a luxury loving and Wahhabi exporting House of Saud. Syncretic forms of Islam were squeezed out by this competition between Wahhabi and Shia orthodoxies. Muslims became “not good”, and their “not greatness” was naturally associated with their “not goodness”.
Americans who remember 1979 associate Muslims with being “not good” who therefore deserve their misery. Americans born after 1979 don’t make this association. My conclusion (or suspicion rather) is that the events of 1979 pushed us into a merit based society where we inherently assume that we are great because we are good.
Why are college protests happening
9/11 was one consequence of the Saudi export of Wahhabism. Most Americans don’t know much about Wahhabism (and really, the details dont matter much), but they instinctively understand that 9/11 happened because of “radical Islam”. There have been more impactful, and more recent, consequences of this radical Islam; but none that have affected Americans directly. And all of the students who are protesting today were born after 9/11.
As humans, we must constantly face (and resolve) a conflict between the “great because good” formulation of merit, and the compassion that we all know we should demonstrate to our fellow humans. We all resolve this conflict in different ways; but if you have not had to deal with the direct consequence of the “not good” action, then it becomes easier to resolve the conflict with human compassion.
Given that I personally think that the “great because good” formulation is a “bunch of hooey” (another formulation that was often invoked by President Clinton), and that this conflict should *always* be resolved in favor of compassion, I am personally very enthused by the students who have done so.
So, I find this chant to be very inspiring
This chant is a modification of the Rich Mans House
genius.com/…
Well I, went down to the rich man's house and I
Took back what he stole from me
(Took it back)
Took back my dignity
Took back my humanity
Oh I, went down to the rich man's house and I
Took back what he stole from me
(Took it back)
Took back my dignity
(Took it back)
Took back my humanity
Now he's under my feet, under my feet, under my feet
Ain't gonna let the system walk all over me!
Well I, went down to the NRA and I
Took back what they stole from me
(Took it back)
Took back my dignity
(Took it back)
Took back my humanity
Oh I, went down to the NRA and I
Took back what he stole from me
(Took it back)
Took back my dignity
(Took —it — back)
Took back my humanity
The students are claiming back their humanity.