Slides to Prepare for the

Final
War and Contemporary Politics
Conservatives (the
Republican Party)
Says economy the primary arena
for freedom
Says disillusion of family and
traditional values the primary
threat to social cohesion
Liberals (the Democratic
Party)
Says personal relations primary
arena for freedom
Says big business abuses and
income inequality the primary
threat to social cohesion
War and Contemporary Politics
Conservatives (the
Republican Party)
Says economy the primary arena
for freedom
Liberals (the Democratic
Party)
Says personal relations primary
arena for freedom

Says disillusion of family and Says big business abuses and

traditional values the primary income inequality the primary
threat to social cohesion threat to social cohesion
Progressives combined both of these things
War and Contemporary Politics
Conservatives (the
Republican Party)
Says economy the primary arena
for freedom
Liberals (the Democratic
Party)
Says personal relations primary
arena for freedom

Says disillusion of family and Says big business abuses and

traditional values the primary income inequality the primary
threat to social cohesion threat to social cohesion
Today (as a nation) we can’t make up our mind
War and Contemporary Politics
American Foreign Policy
Many reasons to criticize
Wilson’s vision of peace (and
American foreign policy
generally)
Wilsonianism (sometimes
international liberalism)
1. Support self-determination of
other nations (promote
democracy)
2. Support international free
trade (global capitalism)
3. Create international
institutions for resolving
conflict (for example, United
Nations)
War and Contemporary Politics
American Foreign Policy
Many reasons to criticize In very broad terms must give
Wilson’s vision of peace (and Wilson credit.
American foreign policy
generally)
At the end of WWII, when his
vision could finally be (mostly)
implemented…

So far, no more world wars.

 Race and Rights
The Civil Rights Movement
“In any nonviolent campaign The strategy eventually became
there are four basic steps: “non-violent direct action”
• collection of the facts to
determine whether injustices Best explained in “Letter from
exist; Birmingham Jail.”
• negotiation;
• self-purification;
• and direct action.”
 Race and Rights
The Civil Rights Movement Nonviolent Resistance
“One who breaks an unjust law
must do so openly, lovingly, and
with a willingness to accept the
penalty. I submit that an individual
who breaks a law that conscience
tells him is unjust, and who
willingly accepts the penalty of
imprisonment in order to arouse the
conscience of the community over
its injustice, is in reality expressing
the highest respect for law.”
 Race and Rights
The Civil Rights Movement Nonviolent Resistance
Victims should
• violate the law
• accept its consequences
• and in the process highlight
the absurdity of the law

People of good will

Act as a kind of jury…

Goal: to create a clear moral

Victims of injustice: distinction between the The oppressors:
suffer the violations Rule of Law and the actual support actual law
of the Rule of Law law
 Race and Rights
The Civil Rights Movement Nonviolent Resistance
King’s approach came to be called Best explained in “Letter from
racial liberalism.
Birmingham Jail.”
Assertion of the Lockean promise
embodied in the Declaration of
Independence
Advantage:
• All people created equal
• The law should not create It can include white people who
distinctions (formal justice) might be willing to give up their
But uses non-Lockean means to obtain racism
this promise
 Race and Rights
The Civil Rights Movement
It can also go back to the promise
of Reconstruction and Fourteenth
Amendment
• “No state shall make or enforce
any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of
citizens of the United States…nor
deny to any person…the equal
protection of the laws.”
Nonviolent Resistance
Best explained in “Letter from
Birmingham Jail.”
Advantage:
It can include white people who
might be willing to give up their
racism
 Race and Rights John Stuart Mill:
“The only purpose
for which power can

Negative Liberty
be rightfully
exercised over any
Someone else harmed member of a
civilized
John Locke: community, against
My Capabilities
“though this his will, is to prevent
harm to others.”
be a state of
liberty, yet it
is not a state
of license”

Line = society Space where I can do what I want

starts to
interfere with
me

Space where I cannot

do what I want The Court now included
Someone else harmed emotional and psychological
Space where I cannot
harm
do what I want
 Government & The Economy:
a Story in Several Parts
Part 2
Market Weaknesses: Government not only concerned
with substantive equality (in
economics).

Government now responsible for

economic stability/growth.
5. Economic Instability or
Recession
In 1945 that looked easy: just
keep spending!
Government & The Economy:
a Story in Several Parts
Part 4
Liberal (starting in 1920s) Conservative (starting in 1930s-1950s)

negative liberty in economic sphere

positive liberty in economic sphere

Support substantive equality in the
economy (and later racial and gender
lines)
Government & The Economy:
a Story in Several Parts
Part 4
How can we continue to spend a
lot on entitlement programs
while cutting taxes?

We just have a lot of debt.

 Government & The Economy:
a Story in Several Parts
Part 4
How can we continue to spend a
Education lot on entitlement programs
Veterans Pay
Transportation
Environment
while cutting taxes?
Justice Dept.

We just have a lot of debt.

Social Security
Interest $266 billion $1.3 trillion

Defense $543 billion

Medicare &
Health $1 trillion
 Government & The Economy:
a Story in Several Parts
Part 4
Total Receipts
$3.21 trillion
How can we continue to spend a
lot on entitlement programs
Total Spending: while cutting taxes?
$3.65 trillion

We just have a lot of debt.

Consumerism and the American
When you buy something you
(1) Consume its function (i.e., listen
to the song, wear the shirt,
drive the car)
(2) You also consume its meaning
(i.e. become a fan of a
particular artist, display the
logo on the shirt, display the
car)
(3) You express your freedom of
choice (Lockean liberty)
What did you hear?
“...expressing not only the
American love of beauty...”
“...but also the basic freedom of
the American people...”
“...which is the freedom of
individual choice...”
“The stylists leave their
unmistakable mark...which we, as
Americans, may enjoy...”
Consumerism and the American

You
All have meanings.

You know those

meanings.
Consumerism and the American
Consumerism
By 1900 American reformers saw Consumerism creates a shared
THREE main flaws to Lockean
liberty: culture among Americans.
1. The promise of wealth failed to
overcome racial prejudice It provides the shared meanings
2. The promise of wealth allowed
some people extravagant that bring us together but allow
fortunes us to differentiate ourselves.
3. The focus on individual freedom
no longer produced a shared What worried most people
culture (community)
 Personal Authenticity
Port Huron Statement
Written by group of college “
students in 1962

Rethinking politics at a time

when identity had become life that is personally
increasingly important authentic…

”
Personal Authenticity
King James’ Time
Culture
Deeply religious Did not want
Modeled everything on the family
reforms; keep
Government
thing way they
were
Economy

Family

Religion
 Personal Authenticity
Revolutionary America
Culture
Embraced freedom, markets, and
individual choice

British screwed Government

Invented a new one of these to better
Government
this up protect property, rights & rule of law
Economy Borrowed some ideas from here

Family
Private Sphere
Religion
 Personal Authenticity
Culture
Progressive America
Make the middle class ideal
Becoming Immoral everyone’s ideal

Ineffective Government Fundamentally reformed this, including a new

branch of government for themselves
Out of control Economy Regulated this

Falling apart Family Asserted the value of this

Out of touch Religion Got control of this

Education
Created this
 Personal Authenticity
Culture Student Activists
More accepting of all lifestyles
Hoped to reform culture directly

Media Liked: because it influenced culture and they

influenced it

Valued the wrong things Government

Valued the wrong things Economy

If culture changes,
Family
Valued the wrong things these will all
Valued the wrong things Religion eventually change to
match the culture
Valued the wrong things Education
 Personal Authenticity
Port Huron Statement
The student radicals believed
1. cultural acceptance matters more because we
already have enough material wealth
2. accept the dignity all authentic identities
3. once accomplished, intractable social problems
(racism, war) go away
4. issues of material comfort will take care of
themselves in a new communal spirit
Redefine tolerance as the active acceptance
of all identities
John Locke
Remember, Locke’s whole premise:
1. material concerns matter more than
cultural concerns.
2. focus on making (or spending) money
3. we don’t have to fight over religion,
personal preferences, etc.
4. we can ‘retreat’ to our private space
(home, church) and do our own thing
Tolerance (I may not like your ideas,
but you have a right to them)
Radicalism and Identity Politics
Young Radicals
“If you can act it out, it is real.”

Ideally, people see the way you

live and adopt it themselves.

Each faced challenges.

Can a community function

without any social institutions?
 Radicalism and Identity Politics
Martin Luther King
Method for gaining cultural acceptance:

Non-violent direct action:

1. “collection of the facts to determine
whether injustices exist;
2. “negotiation;
3. “self-purification;
4. “and direct action.”

What happens when the culture responds

violently? Can non-violence endure?

Answer increasingly appeared to be ‘no…’

 Radicalism and Identity Politics
Late 1960s
Culture and Social Institutions
seemed too powerful
• Too entrenched
• Too unwilling to change
Nothing symbolized this more
for Civil Rights workers and
Young Radicals than the
Vietnam War
In the early 1960s
We should accept each other as
equals:
• Not just economically or
politically
• But culturally
• We should think of each other
as equals
 Radicalism and Identity Politics
Feminism “The Personal is Political”
In the 1970s, feminism became “One of the first things we
the vanguard for radical politics discover in these groups is that
personal problems are political
problems.”
 Radicalism and Identity Politics
Feminism Conclusions
By the early 1970s… American culture is:
• An all-encompassing system (no
one escapes)
• It assigns certain identities to its
members and violently resists
efforts to change those identities
• Power is present in all
relationships between members of
a culture
• Where there is cultural power
there is oppression
 Radicalism and Identity Politics
Redstockings Manifesto Redstockings
These are the beneficiaries
of oppression

I am part of an oppressed
every such relationship is a cultural “class”
class relationship

I must fight the whole cultural

system
Radicalism and Identity Politics
Liberal (starting in 1920s) Conservative (starting in 1930s-1950s)

negative liberty in terms of “expression” negative liberty in economic sphere

(free speech and alcohol; later drugs and
sexual freedom)
positive liberty in economic sphere
Support substantive equality in the
economy (and later racial and gender
lines)
positive liberty in terms of marriage,
family, religion and sexuality
("traditional" values) state should
intervene to protect "traditional" values
as the basis of a civil society

Identity Politics (starting in 1970s) Libertarian (starting in 1950s)

positive liberty to change how people negative liberty in economic and

think. Specifically: personal sphere
• show cultural oppression of certain identities
• assert the value of those identities
• police language, arts, media, and other
cultural products for expressions that
reproduce oppression
• seek substantive equality to redress past
harm
Liberal v liberal v Republican v republican
liberal republican
• Lockean • Structure of government
• Jefferson – Don’t care about • John Adams – Need
structure; care about freedom & governmental structure
consent
Liberal Republican
• Both little-r republican – • Both little-r republican –
structure in government structure in government
Personal Authenticity
Culture
More accepting of all lifestyles

Media

Government

Economy

Family

Religion

Education
 Personal Authenticity
Culture Identity Politics
More accepting of all lifestyles
Hoped to reform culture directly

Media

Still distrusted Government

Still distrusted Economy

If culture changes,
Family
Still distrusted these will all
Still distrusted
Religion eventually change to
match the culture
Education
A Body for Work, A Body for Pleasure
Negative Liberty:
Lockean framework

My Capabilities

Line = society Space where I buy what I want (if I can afford it)
starts to What I am “buying” is either/both
interfere with • an identity
me • Pleasure

Space where I cannot Do I have a right to consumer pleasure?

do what I want Are there any limits to consumer pleasure (besides harm)?

Space where I cannot

do what I want
A Body for Work, A Body for Pleasure
John Locke
“The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands,
we may say, are properly his [which]...excludes the
common right of other Men.”
Our body functions primarily to labor
To keep itself (and my self, my mind, etc.) alive.
Supreme Court
“…the concept of personal ‘liberty’ embodied in the
Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause; or in
personal, marital, familial, and sexual privacy said to be
protected by the Bill of Rights or its penumbras.”
Our body is for pleasure.
A Body for Work, A Body for Pleasure
What does this mean?
• You have a constitutional right • There are limits to way you
to own your body and use it for own your body to make money,
sexual pleasure provided you even if others are helped by
only involve other consenting your action.
adults.
 A Body for Work, A Body for Pleasure
A Brief History of American Freedom

1800 1865 1900 1925 1950 1965 1975 2000

John Locke Civil War

• Emergence of a • Body is for pleasure
• We own ourselves Slavery “consumer” ethos
wrong
• We own our labor • Identity = what we
because it
• Freedom = using our denied the buy, what we wear
bodies as we chose, slave the
keeping the property right to his
our bodies make labor

We are still Lockean, but with this

consumer twist
A Body for Work, A Body for Pleasure
Sex and Consumption
• You know we live in a post-Port
Huron world because of this
acronym.

• While each group is tied

together within a coalition

• Each letter stands for a distinct

sexual identity (not to be
confused for the others)
A Body for Work, A Body for Pleasure
Generally see the sexual revolution as a
catastrophe because it has dissolved the
family.
The family is the basic fabric that holds
the nation together.
Conservative (starting in 1930s-1950s)
negative liberty in economic sphere
positive liberty in terms of marriage,
family, religion and sexuality
("traditional" values) state should
intervene to protect "traditional" values
as the basis of a civil society
A Body for Work, A Body for Pleasure
Full Disclosure
My best guess about today: Both Conservatives and Liberals
(big “L”) mostly fail when
generating positive liberty
arguments against:
• Sexual freedom
• Economic inequality

At least so far, negative liberty

mostly keeps winning.
Substantive Equality Formal Equality
• Identity politics • Plessy v Ferguson
• Special treatment for • Colorblindness
certain groups
Court cases
• Dread Scott – “The worst supreme court case ever”
• Pre-Civil War
• Once a slave, always a slave
• Premise: Returning slaves
• “We don’t have authority to deal with segregation in the U.S.”
• Don’t deal with whether state is slave/free
• Result: Slavery is OK in whatever states
• Radicalized North and South
• Plessy v Ferguson
• Post-Civil War
• Separate but equal = OK

• Brown v Board
• Separate but equal = NOT OK
• Separation is psychologically inherently harmful

• Roe v. Wade
• Body for pleasure
• Body NOT for work