The Role of Puritanism in the Ideology of the Republican Party Today

I have been arguing that since around 1992, the Republican Party has been controlled by ideologues to a degree that has never occurred in American history. We can define "ideology" as a belief system that is largely disconnected from respect for and attention to objective reality. More concretely stated, those in the midst of an ideological movement do not check their assumptions against reality. This failure to "check in" with reality is usually justified emotionally by telling one's self that there are forces in the larger society which are morally bad and that must be overcome at "all costs". At the core of all ideological impulses in America we can find Puritanism. Puritanism can be understood psychologically as the felt belief that "I am morally right and because of this, justified before God and thus superior. Because of this I have a moral duty to make the world bend to my will, and others have a moral duty to follow." While I had thought ideology in the US, so defined, would manifest on the Left, it is now obvious to me that my own thinking about this was clouded. While the Puritan impulse influences the American Left just as much as it does the Right, for by virtue of being American we each have this impulse within us, the proper combination of beliefs required for an energetic and effective large scale ideological political movement does not exist on the Left in the US. As such, while there are indeed elements on the Left that are ideological in the sense defined here, this element cannot and will not be able to get traction and has no large scale influence on our national politics. The same cannot be said of the American Right.

An important qualification needs to be made here. While there is moral fervor on the Left as on the Right, the Left has another source for its own ideology which is qualitatively distinct from the Puritan impulse I am arguing is key to understanding the nature of the present-day Republican Party. The particular facts that I mean to shine a light on in the Party are its moral fervor as animated by Puritanism, and the continued pursuit of policies which are demonstrably harmful to the long term well being and stability of the United States. I am not speaking of anyone or any movement which is in fact based on Enlightenment rationality primarily or exclusively.  This is a needed qualification, because one might be inclined to see this or that element on the American Left as possessing and displaying the qualities I am attributing to the American Right. The Left as a political force does not heavily overlap with Puritanism as a core animating passion, and as such cannot gain traction to become a full-scale outbreak of ideology in the way I am here saying is possible on the American Right. In short, while it does have moral fervor animating it, the particular complex of sources of this fervor are such to make it relatively weak as a political movement. The Enlightenment is purely modern, while Puritanism is pre-modern in its sources, and as such the two as present in the inspirational sources of the American Left tend to cancel each other out as concerns its more ideologically-based moral beliefs. One cannot have a coherent morality if they are not clear on which elements in the belief system come from pre-modern thought, on the one hand, and modern, on the other. This has always been the achilles heel of the Left in both the US and Europe. To the extent that the ideology of the Right is grounded more consistently on one source of morality - namely Puritanical essentially pre-modern impulses in America and aristocratic values in Europe - the Right is more internally coherent than the Left. The sufficient condition for the creation of a mass ideological movement is just such internal coherence. In the longer run, the belief system does have to be consistent with objective reality, in the way the founding ideas of the United States are for the most part, but in the short run an ideology can be quite disonnected from reality and still control a nation or party. In non-democracies such as the Soviet Union, this reckoning with reality that must eventually happen when an ideology dominates the nation can take much longer and cost the citizens much more. Only when reality finally catches up with the essentially irrational policies of the movement will it begin to fizzle out. The usual indication of ideological control of a nation is a consistent pattern of decline in the economic well-being of most citizens in the nation. This is usually associated with a statistically significant improvement in a very small portion of the population relative to the past as well as to the rest of the society in the present. The statistical consistency of this pattern - increasing ideologically-based policy making hand in hand with a statistically significant change in the economic well being of a very small portion of the population should be enough to indicate that ideological movements are always ultimately manipulated to serve the narrow interests of a very few, namely those who are addicted to increasing both power and wealth.

To the extent that basing political and economic policy on ideology must lead to bad government, defined as generally accepted, ideological movements are to be considered heretical by the standard of good government. As such, all good citizens must make it a primary duty to avoid parties that reach a point where they have fallen into the trance of an ideological movement as described here. While such a "trance" has existed since WWII on the European Left, we now see such a trance dominating the American Republican Party. We might say that the European Left is from Mars, and the American Right is from Venus.

The primary reason that McCain is disliked by various "conservative" radio talk show hosts and other "movement conservatives", is precisely because McCain has not agreed to go along with the appearance of being "entranced" by the Party's reigning dogmas as have the other candidates who ran for office in the Party. It is noteworthy that the American public is not a part of this trance to the extent that they voted for McCain over Guiliani, Thompson or Romney in particular, who showed in the language they used while campaigning that they were seeking to manipulate the present "trance" to gain the nomination. As for McCain and the antipathy the radicals in the Party display towards him, in the past he has rejected the highly irresponsible tax cuts of the Bush Administration as well as the so-called "Christian" element in the Party that confuses the public use of Puritanical moral language with real Christianity.

 

The Republican Party Today is in an Analogous Situation as the Democratic Party in 1980

Irrespective of McCain himself, however, the Republican Party platform is much like the Democratic platform in 1980. The fact that it is under the influence of an ideologically induced trance means that no single leader can really lead it at the current time. It will only be because they don't control Congress that they are unable to pursue their Puritanically inspired, utopian policies. In 1980, the Democratic Party had been in power, both practically as well as philosophically, for quite some time and was in a similar trance, though not of equal lasting power or force, owing to the fact that specifically modern Enlightenment utopianism constitutes the source of its own form of moral radicalism. This trance was predicated on what I call Enlightenment fundamentalism. The presence of "Enlightenment fundamentalism", in contrast to Puritan-inspired fundamentalism, can be discerned whenever activists or politicians use public language that implies that politics can be used as a direct means to the attainment of deep justice, understood exclusively along economic lines. Whereas morality is the primary category of the Puritan, generally conceived, what I here call "deep justice" is the primary target of the Enlightenment radical on the Left. Justice, too, is susceptible to being conceived as a deep moral good, and just as capable of being imbued with a moral fervor as happens with public morality in that part of the Republican Party known as the "religious right".

In 1980, then, the Republican Party was the Party of new ideas. Given the much higher degree of secularism on the Left and the disjunct between the sources of moral judgment in Enlightenment radicalism and American Puritanism, and given the fact that the moral wing of the Republican Party has its roots in American Puritanism - which has no analog in the Democratic Party - there was always a much bigger danger on the Right than on the Left for hubris and excess. This needs some explaining. The Right in the West is inclined to take their own moral language too seriously, simply because there is a perception that the policies advocated are predicated on religious grounds. Because in fact the Republican Party platform is "mixed up" with Puritanical sources of felt belief, the Party activists are prone to believing that they alone have discovered the truth. I stated above that this was a prime psychological attribute of the Puritan-inspired sensibility. The Left, in America, whether secular or religious, generally does not predicate any moral claims it makes on religious grounds. (The fact that the religious wing of the Left is not comfortable making its religious-inspired values explicit as such is a source of incoherence for this wing.) While the Left generally conceived does have links to Puritanism by virtue of being in the American civilizational realm, as argued above, the content of its explicit beliefs derive in the Enlightenment. At the same time that it has a weaker Puritanical influence, its radical stance towards reason and the Enlightenment makes it much more prone to being successfully critiqued when it disconnects from reality in the way I have argued is prone to happening above when moral fervor takes over a movement which has strong links to Puritanism. The critique of the Left can come both from within and without. In short, while the core ideas on the Left can lead to an ideologically induced trance in a relatively small number of intellectual-types, it is only on the American Right that such a trance can become large enough to take over a political Party and a significant percentage of voter-citizens. And this, I am arguing, is what has happened in the Republican Party around 1992. We have historically seen the Right put large groups of people under a kind of trance in Europe. I am arguing that a similar phenomenon has been happening in the United States for some time now. Our own form of trance will be more benign than similarly induced trances in Europe. But it may cause the United States to lose its relatively high degree of economic sovereignty. And to the extent that Americans associate economic well being with freedom, this is to say that the Republican Party today is costing Americans their freedom. The irony of this ought not go unnoticed, given that the Party invests great moral fervor in the concept of 'freedom'. We are seeing the diminishment of our freedom currently in the consistent decline of the dollar, for example. Ideological determination of policies tends to lead to a loss of control over one's economy, which is another way of saying that being out of reality leads to a loss of collective control over our lives. It seems that the radical individualism of the economic Right is another false belief that has to be challenged by those who think. We do, after all, have interests that can only be served when we act together.

More Remarks on Puritanically Induced Moral Fervor: Reagan as Trance-Inducer

Let us say a little bit about the source and nature of this "mass trance", observable currently in the American Republican Party. The single most important difference between Americans who describe themselves as conservatives - whether social/"religious" or economic - and those who do not is that the former are prone to being heavily influenced by what Plato calls "beautiful speeches", or "beautiful moral language". The use of moral language by those who wish to manipulate public opinion is as old as Western civilization and is a well-known theme in the history of political and moral philosophy. For various reasons, Ronald Reagan is only properly understood when we come to see that he effectively introduced to our own country the use of moral language for the purpose of putting large parts of the population in a kind of low-level trance. I was in this low-level trance for quite some time. To say this is not to say he intended to do this, or that he understood the darker side of what he was introducing. Reagan happened to come along at a time when there was a sufficiently large group of activists in the Party to take the very successful use of American civilizational imagery and use it to constitute a new movement predicated on the kind of trance I am arguing here is holding the Republican Party captive. The core content of this trance was "birthed", if you will, by Reagan's skill at knowing how to speak a language that concretized the morally significant symbols of American civilization. This ability to tap into the morally resonant symbols of a culture can be a good thing when it is accepted in the proper way. But it can become an enabler of all sorts of manpulations of the society by selfish interests when the language ends up concealing hidden agendas. One of the weaknesses of the symbols invoked by Reagan is that their sources are primarily in modern political thought, and not any robust moral or spiritual thought. Hence when the "religious right" ended up aligning itself with Reaganism, it in effect mixed oil and water. In fact, the "religious right" is to a significant extent predicated on a moral philosophy which is more modern than traditional in pedigree, which is to say, not a truly religious belief system. In this respect, the "religious right" is incoherent for the same reason that the Left in the West generally is: a confused mixture of distinct moralities. The result, as is easy to see, is the Republican Party as it stands today: a political organization which puts a lot of energy into protecting the narrow economic interests of the most successful in the society. Given the Constitution of the United States, which does not view politics as a means of attaining deep justice or goodness but rather at harnessing the self-centeredness of the naturally strong and able to a common good, we should not be surprised that the adoption of Reaganism by activists and many average moral individuals ended up simply enabling a variety of narrow economic interests to get their way at the expense of the well being of society as a whole. In short, ironically, Reagan's ability to speak to the romantic-individualist streak of American civilization enabled its dark side to come out of the shadows.  This dark side is grounded in particular in a peculiar melange of modern and pre-modern sources of moral beliefs. Keep in mind - the critique of Reaganism is not black and white. There are certain elements in the American self-understanding into which he tapped which are in fact worthy of being called beautiful. One of these core beliefs is what I call "romantic individualism". But all moral passion can get disfigured when it is misdirected, and I am suggesting that this is precisely what happened when those who defined themselves as deeply moral and righteous allied themselves with Reagan's political platform. For we are never to expect deep moral goodness to come out of political action, and especially not in the context of American political philosophy.

Let us define a trance as follows: the kind of trance I am arguing holds sway of the Republican Party today can be defined as coming about when the individual citizen-voter comes to focus exclusively on the perceived moral significance of the language that the political candidate speaks. Importantly, and for complex reasons, when an individual citizen-voter begins to focus on the perceived moral language of the politician, he will at the same time begin to pay less and less attention to those concrete issues central to good government. The reason for this is that the good government has nothing to do with the moral project he has in his heart when deciding to let moral categories form his ideas about what politics should and should not be about; about what Party he should and should not vote for. The realization on the part of the citizen that the politician is "speaking their language" occurs on a pre-conscious, or "felt" level, and is resistant to self-reflection. In fact, both the form and content which constitutes the trance under which the citizen-voter who has decided to make moral language core to their decision process strongly mitigates against self-reflection, or questioning. We might call this a "felt belief system."

Along these lines, I want to propose a new iron rule of politics along with a few corollaries:

Rule: At the moment a political Party or movement in the West effectively makes the decision to make moral language core to the management of its public relations, that political Party will begin to increasingly serve the interests of a few with power and influence and less the common good.

a) Corollary: The primary purpose of politics in the West as it has come to be understood by Western democracies is not to directly make society morally and spiritually better, but to "check" the self-interest of those who are most motivated to use the society for their own narrow interests. The reason that this is the proper end of politics is that there are always a small percentage of individuals in any society who are both strong and able to get their way. This is an anthropological fact assumed as a given throughout the history of Western political thought. We see examples of this usually only when we see the government plea bargaining with members of the Mafia, and in the continued existence of the Mafia itself. In Western political though, the difference between the Mafia and those individuals who over time get involved in politics and business is not viewed as one of kind, but degree. Any source of robust moral goodness in the individuals that function within political and economic instututions is considered to come from sources outside these institutitions, e.g. traditional moral beliefs usually associated with robust religious and spiritual practices. The sole moral role of the political and economic structures is negative: to manage self-interested passions. One of the ironies of American society is that Americans tend to get sentimental about these matters, by virtue of taking the claim that "all men are created equal" in an overly literal fashion. The meaning of this expression is legal and moral only in the sense understood by the term "equal before God". There is no assumption in American political thought that human beings are equal as concerns what they care deeply about or are motivated by. And since it is what motivates a person that defines them, to say this is to say that human beings are not equal where it matters morally and spiritually. There is moreover a strong assumption that there will always be a small percentage that is both radically self-centered and capable of getting what it wants at the expense of others. That is to say, what a small percentage of any population "cares about" puts it at odds with the maintenance of social order and general economic well being of most of the citizens. I've taken to describing these few as types who get addicted to increasing their power and/or wealth. By taking the claim that "all men are created equal", Americans have recently too often enabled just such a type of person get the better of the nation as a whole.

b) Corollary: The primary purpose of Western political-economic institutions is not to maximize the freedom of each individual, but to channel the motivation of the strong and able so that they in fact act in ways which are minimally harmful to the common good. This "checking" is what we call "justice". The American Right misunderstands American freedom when it sees it as a deep moral good or as an end in itself. The American Left misunderstands American justice when it reads a deep moral good into it. This "negative justice" - in which the primary function of rules and laws is to check the excesses of selfish interests in both government and business - is the genius of the American constitution, and nothing else.

c) Corollary: Any positive moral or spiritual good that exists in Western society generally and American in particular does not come from political-economic institutions and arrangements - politics in short - but from culture and civilization which exists prior in time and importance to these institutions. The American Right is incorrect in seeing the proper contrast to be between "government" and "free institutions" or "government" and "business". The proper contrast is between i) sources of moral goodness and deep justice, vs. ii) sources of activity motivated by narrow self-interest. Category (ii) includes concrete individuals in high places in both government and business. Category (i) can be made up of any single individaul, in any capacity. The point is that the formal political economy does not count on those who hold high positions in either government or business to be what Aristotle calls "good men". In their "job functions" in the political economy, Western political thinkers only cared that they be "good citizens", now defined as not allowing any selfish passions ally with their natural abilities to harm the common good. If the single individual businessperson or politician is also a morally good person in a deep sense, more often that not grounded in Christian sprituality and morality and not political values, from the perspective of the founders and our Constitution, this is a bonus and to be praised. But by no means are we to assume this.  And this is precisely what American conservatives do today in making the false dichotomy between business and government. In the false dichotomy of the American right, "private interests" are good, and "government" is bad. This is a misunderstanding of American political-economy. In our political model, government must be used by the free citizen - who potentially can be any member of the society - to "keep in check" any potentially disruptive, excessively narrow interests - which can potentially exist in both government and business. The purpose of government is not to maximize the freedom of the most capable as an end in itself. Moreover, according to all great moral philosophers and prophets, the deep goodness that exists in society and in individual lives will not come from political-economic arrangements, as both 'modernist' American liberals and "conservatives" claim. Following up on this "lesson" we learn from the moral philosophers and prophets, the founders of modern political economy tell us that politics should not be the venue in which deep moral goals are attained. The sole purpose of the political-economy is two-fold: i) To maintain external security and ii) enable the citizens, on the basis of Corollary B, to attain their basic needs. For the extra-political sources of moral goodness to function properly, e.g. the integrity usually grounded in deep Christian moral sources, they must not be mixed into the political-economy, in either thought or policy-making.

Given that we are not to look to political-economy or politics as a source of deep moral goodness, where then will goodness come from in a society? And what is our political duty as citizens? To respond briefly to the first question, moral and spiritual goodness comes from free, private citizens talking about the deep moral and spiritual good as individuals in the context of small groups and to others one on one, whether in families of among friends or voluntary associations such as churches. We also "spread" moral and spiritual goodness in the larger society by doing good acts. The stress is to be on the deed, and not the beautiful speech. This then is our moral and spiritual job as free individuals.

What is our political duty? What of deep justice? Our political task is to require government to fulfill its basic obligations. The contrast is not between "free citizens" and "the government", but between free and rational citizens and those forces which are motivated by merely narrow self-interest. To repeat: these forces can be and more often than not are in both government and private industry. The policies we pursue to prevent the dominance of narrow economic interests are not imposed on us from "the government", but rather we collectively impose them on ourselves through"we the people" as government because we are able to see, on the basis of rational reflection, that this or that policy will both avoid the dark side of the unfettered freedom of those who are able and willing to pursue their own narrow interests at the expense of society as well as further the common good. The "common good" is not to be conflated with spiritual or religious ends, but has two components: Those policies which make society agreeable and one in which we want to bring our children up, as well as those conditions generally conceived which make it possible to pursue deeper moral and spiritual ends. An important part of this task is to require that all who participate in gaining economic benefits from the larger society to abide by rules which preserve the common good as just defined. In this view, then, freedom is not an end in itself, but a means to the good of the individual as a member of the larger society. The goal of the government is not to maximize the freedom of those who are most able to succeed economically, but rather to enable the most members of the larger society to live as best they can in the context of freedom.

Currently, the primary end of the Republican Party is to maximize the economic well being of those who are best at getting what they want in a narrow economic sense. But the treatment of freedom as and end in itself must lead to a decline in the larger society, for various reasons. If freedom is the main political value, then this must lead to a decline in the ethical status of the civilization. For when freedom trumps all other values, which it does under the current moral-fervor induced trance of the Republican Party, those who live by the lowest ethical standards must gain more influence. Seeing this does not require terribly much thought. Plato hinted at this problem at the beginning of his Republic in the character of Thrasymachus, who argued that "justice is whatever is in the interest of the naturally stronger". . The primary philosophical task for thinking people of good will is to ask: What standards will we live by, both collectively and privately? The standard proposed by the Republican Party today is: We shall live by the interest of the stronger, or most able, simply. And in this claim the Party confusedly equates the "most able" with "morally virtuous".

Conclusion: Why is McCain disliked so passionately by "movement conservatives"?

McCain himself is not a part of the trance-induced "movement" discussed above, either as victim or as propogator. The primary reason McCain is passionately disliked by the more fanatical elements in the Party, in spite of the fact that he is conservative in the most important way - he is moderate - is precisely because he threatens a significant part of today's Republican Party with the "shattering" of their self-induced trance. McCain out of all the candidates who ran for the Republican Party nomination is the only one who refused to use moral language in the way demanded by the some in the Party. However, this is not to say that this Party itself has been re-educated away from the trance. Like all belief systems which have a disconnect between their moral passion and respect for reality, those who adhere to this belief system will fight hard to maintain its influence, irrespective of the concrete harm it does to the public good. Ideologues are not interested in concrete reality. Even if John McCain gets the nomination, the Party will not re-enter reality until reality forces it to do so. This will happen at some point. Until then, the Party will continue to embrace with intense moral fervor various policies which are irrational and contrary to the public good and the stability of the United States. I need not yet again elaborate on the many empirically evident bad policies, both foreign and domestic, of this Party since 1992.