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The Spectacle Blog
Remember when David Brooks championed a conservatism of Doing Big Things, whether it was it was waging big wars or building big monuments? Well, our monuments aren’t big enough. Which apparently means some stuff:
You end up with movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Parties that try to dispense with authority altogether. They reject hierarchies and leaders because they don’t believe in the concepts. The whole world should be like the Internet — a disbursed semianarchy in which authority is suspect and each individual is king….
I don’t know if America has a leadership problem; it certainly has a followership problem. Vast majorities of Americans don’t trust their institutions. That’s not mostly because our institutions perform much worse than they did in 1925 and 1955, when they were widely trusted. It’s mostly because more people are cynical and like to pretend that they are better than everything else around them. Vanity has more to do with rising distrust than anything else.
It’s a reversal of the old brush-off: It’s not me, it’s you.
View all comments (6) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/06/13/national-lousiness-conservatis
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R. Dittmar| 6.13.12 @ 1:37PM
Has Brooks been smoking too much choom with his buddy in the Oval Office? How can he possibly say this with a straight face?
" That’s not mostly because our institutions perform much worse than they did in 1925 and 1955"
Someone needs to tell Brooks that guys back then could actually balance a budget and win a war or two. In fact, Dave, not only did they manage to keep their pants well creased, they managed to keep them UP during the work day.
DRed| 6.13.12 @ 2:25PM
It's not that Americans don't believe in the concept of leadership, it's that we realize our government is terribly corrupt and unresponsive. Not really rocket science.
Quartermaster| 6.13.12 @ 6:15PM
There are two faux-Republicans that all would be better of ignoring. The moronic Frum, and "Creases" Brooks. Both are narcissistic RINOs and neither are worth the time of day.
PCPSmokerII| 6.13.12 @ 7:19PM
If recall correctly, there was:
1. National Greatness Conservatism, Brooks and Kristol
2. Compassionate Conservatism, W
3. Common Sense Conservatism, Sarah Palin
4. Crunchy Conservatism, Dickface Dreher
5.Wall Mart/New Deal Conservatism, Russ Whodat?
6. Severe Conservatism, Romney
7. Green Conservatism, NRO and Gingrich
8.Comeback Conservatism, David Frump
All fads and all failures.
Long live Reagan Conservatism.
MikeBee| 6.14.12 @ 9:29AM
Why do we have to continually teach Civics to liberal Republicans? This country is unique on the face of the Earth, in that it is the ONLY country on the face of the Earth where the rulers are the People, NOT the government. It is the People who lead here. The People do not follow the government.
So, I guess that I would add to the above that there is a very big problem in America. America has a followership problem, I agree. The problem is that the government in this country does not know how to follow its leaders, the People. It spends too much time telling the People what to do. Regulating big soft drinks and popcorn? FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!! If the People want this stuff, let them have it. In fact, this country has an obesity problem precisely because the government told us that Fat was bad for us, and we should eat more Carbs.
We don't need a nanny government telling us what to do every minute of every day. We need a federal government to provide military defense and military security, so that we can carry on with our business unimpeded by anyone. But, right now, we need to figure out how to get liberal Democrats and liberal Republicans out of our way, so that we can carry on with our business unimpeded by THEM.
RAM| 6.14.12 @ 11:02AM
In 1976, I complained to my department manager about the poor quality of the candidates for President. He responded, "Do you know what the problem is with politicians?...they're like us!"
I don't think either politicians or voters should be exempt from criticism. After all, you can't buy a vote from someone who won't be bought.