By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, October 19th, 2010 
The political right has been successful in swaying the general public for the time being, but American intellectuals remain unconvinced: are there any serious conservative intellectuals?
I am not worried that the universities are dominated by tenured radicals, as one right wing ideologue or another regularly discovers. While the political center of American academics is significantly to the left of the center of the public at large, I see no reason to be particularly upset by this. Career soldiers are probably to the right of the American consensus and this too doesn’t put me up in arms. Better not, I guess. The experience of particular vocations informs political judgment, and people with common world views make common career choices.
But I do worry about the absence of intelligent conservative commentary and criticism in American intellectual life. It does seem to me that almost all serious thought these days is to be found on the left, and I don’t think that this is a good thing. The conservative tradition contributes too much for it to come down to this. And given the swings from left to right in the public mood (which I do regret, all I am saying is give leftists a chance) it would be a good thing if there were a sensible right.
Ideologues of the right, of course, do exist, those who know that there is a clear and present danger, and we must be vigilant, these days against “Islamofascism. “ I think that’s what they call it. But these use fantasy and fear to empower their arguments, not reason and careful observation. How else can you find a liberal Sufi cleric to be a terrorist sympathizer?
And there are those who cling if not to their guns and religion, to their absolute dogmatic beliefs and their assertions of the moral high ground, while fearing actual moral inquiry and debate. Better to worry about the attack on Christmas. And also those who know with certainty that the market is magical, and condemn government waste and inefficiency, who never met a tax cut they didn’t like, won’t ever concede that tax increases . . .
Read more: Where are the Conservative Intellectuals?
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, September 26th, 2010
 Although I mostly teach graduate students, I teach one course a year in the liberal arts college of the New School, Eugene Lang College. In my course this year, we have been closely reading Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, freely discussing his topic, the American democratic experience. My goal for the class is to go back and forth, between close reading and informed discussion.
Of the two volumes in Tocqueville’s classic, I enjoy most reading and discussing Volume 2, which is more a critical examination of the promise and perils of democracy and its culture, less about the institutional arrangements and inventive practices of the Americans, which Tocqueville celebrated and which is the focus of Volume 1 of his masterpiece. But this year, Volume 1 has become especially interesting to me. I hope for the students also.
I have taught the course many times. The way it develops always depends upon what’s going on in the world, who is in the class, and how they connect their lives with the challenges of Tocqueville. We don’t read Tocqueville for his insights and predictions about the details of American life, judging what he got right, what he got wrong. Rather, we try to figure out how his approach to the problems of democracy can help us critically understand our world and his, democracy in America back then and now.
Assigning the Constitution 
This semester, indeed, for the past two weeks, the course has taken an interesting turn. As we have been reading Tocqueville on the American system of government, political associations and freedom of the press, i.e. Volume 1, Parts 1 and 2, I felt the need to assign an additional shorter reading, The Constitution of the United States of America. I did this not because I feared that the students hadn’t yet read this central document in the story of democracy in America and beyond (they had), but because I judged that it was time to re-read the text, to note what is in it and what is not, to critically appraise the use of the document as a confirmation of the partisan . . .
Read more: The Constitution and American Political Debate
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, September 12th, 2010
Max Weber, author of "Politics as Vocation"
It sometimes feels like Barack Obama has studied Max Weber’s classic, “Politics as a Vocation,” a bit too carefully. In his lecture, given in the aftermath of the tragedy of World War I, Weber made a strong distinction between an ethics of responsibility and an ethics of ultimate ends – between an ethics that is based in getting practical things done politically, serving one’s constituency’s interests and understandings, and an ethics of principled politics, true to one’s core values.
Such a distinction leads Obama to clearly distinguish between an ethics of responsible governance and an ethics of imaginative and eloquent political campaigning, including attractive depictions of ultimate ends. Obama’s reticence to use the poetry of campaigning, while he is engaged in the prose of governing, has meant that he hasn’t attacked those who have viciously attacked him. It is only now in campaign mode that he is responding. There are pressing questions: has his been a responsible approach? And has his position made Obama’s (and his supporters) ends more distant?
Thus, Brian Beutler, in a post on Talking Points Memo, applauded President Obama in his speech on the economy of September 8 in Cleveland for his direct attack on John Boehner, criticizing him “by name no less than eight times,” but laments “Complicating matters for Democrats is that, well, few Americans know who “Mr. Boehner” is. That might not be the case if Obama had given speeches like this starting a year ago. But there are still several weeks to go until election day.”
And Bob Herbert, in his op-ed. piece on Tuesday, was very pleased but also bewildered, “ Mr. Obama linked the nation’s desperate need for jobs to the sorry state of the national infrastructure in a tone that conveyed both passion and empathy, and left me wondering, ‘Where has this guy been for the past year and a half?’”
The Method to his Madness?
Yet, it should be understood that there is a method, or at least a significant strategic decision, to the President’s madness. He knew that he might need at least a . . .
Read more: Obama’s Dilemna: Responsible or Principled Politics?
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, September 7th, 2010
This post is the second in a series. Read the first part here.
 President Obama’s “Address to the Nation on the End of Combat Operations in Iraq,” was consistent with his first public speech expressing his opposition to the war. He stood by the same principles, as he was fulfilling his responsibility as head of state, President for the entire nation and not only those who support him and his partisan position. To paraphrase one of his standard lines, he was not speaking as President of the Blue States or the Red States, but as President of the United States of America. The night of the address and in the days that followed, this most basic quality of his speech was overlooked. Instead, there were misleading interpretations, from Obama’s critics and his supporters, revealing a fundamental problem in our public life.
The Partisan Interpretations
From his partisan opposition, the criticism was strong. <<Obama should have declared victory,>> Senator John McCain and his interviewer Sean Hannity, agreed. (video) He should have given President Bush full credit for the victory. He should have apologized for his opposition to the surge. Lindsey Graham concurred and was particularly critical that Obama did not acknowledge the terrorists’ defeat and the need to extend our momentum in Afghanistan. (video) The emphasis on withdrawal instead of victory was the fundamental problem with the President’s speech. “It’s not about when we leave in Afghanistan. It’s about what we leave behind.” Charles Krauthammer, in the instant analysis following the speech on Fox News, observed that the speech was “both flat and odd.” Flat, because it did not celebrate the victory, but rather emphasized the withdrawal almost as a lamentation. Odd, because of the way he linked his topics, from Iraq to Afghanistan to, most disturbing for Krauthammer, tacking on an “economic pep talk.” There should have been a coherent speech about our missions abroad. Instead there was a speech by a man who is only interested in his domestic agenda. (video) And from his partisan supporters there was also serious criticism, mirroring the rage on the right. <<Obama should have declared defeat,>> Frank . . .
Read more: The End of the Iraq War
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, September 2nd, 2010
 The Tea Party Movement is an instance of the politics of small things–much like some of the causes I have supported. In their interactions, and through its members’ commitment to their cause, a power has been genuinely created. What changes the Tea Party will cause for American politics as a whole is yet to be seen.
The Tea Party Movement is an instance of “the politics of small things”–a version on the right. I am not a supporter of the aims of this movement, as I was of the Dean and the Obama campaigns and the anti-war movement, and earlier of the democratic opposition in the former Soviet bloc.
In those instances of “the politics of small things,” I was very much both a participant and an observer. I observed how real alternatives to existing practices were developed in ways that I strongly supported, i.e. the development of the Solidarity Trade Union Movement and Democratic opposition in Poland, the emergence of Barack Obama as President of the United States. But even though I am not so involved or supportive of this new instance of the politics of small things, I recognize it for what it is. People have been meeting each other, sharing opinions, discussing strategies, coordinating tactics and becoming clearly visible to each other and to outside observers.
Power has been created in these interactions. This cannot be artificially manufactured. It would not exist unless people willingly and actively took part. The success of this depended upon active participants interacting with others and bringing themselves along. Even if there are powerful forces behind this movement( see Frank Rich’s op-ed and Mayer article), its political power is primarily generated by people acting in concert, as they took part in the Town Hall meetings of the Summer of 2009 and in many other local and statewide movements and campaigns since, and in major demonstrations, such as the one Glenn Beck organized for September 12, 2009 in Washington and now again last weekend at his . . .
Read more: The Tea Party Effect
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 23rd, 2010
Politics in the Kagan confirmation hearings, like that of Sotomayor, were clearly on display. I think E.J. Dionne had it right in Kagan’s case, “Something momentous has happened to our struggle over the Supreme Court’s role when Republicans largely give up talking about “judicial activism,” when liberals speak of the importance of democracy and deference to elected officials, and when judges are no longer seen as baseball umpires.” (link)
In Kagan’s hearings significant changes were revealed in how the parties approach justice. It was the Democrats who were concerned about legislation from the bench, concerned as they were by the threat the Court poses to the Democratic political agenda, from regulating oil drilling, to delivering healthcare reform, to controlling the use of guns in this very violent country of ours. The Republicans, on the other hand, while making gestures against judicial activism, were cheering it as it served their political ends, equating campaign contributions as speech, granting corporations the right of free speech, selecting a President.
For many, on the Republican extreme, indeed, the Constitution has come to be identified with their anti-government agenda, their agenda for keeping the Reagan revolution alive. At the Kagan confirmation hearings this political confrontation was perfectly clear. I do worry about the balance and direction of the court, given my political commitments. I wish the balance of the court would change, just as those who are happy with the character of Roberts’ Court would like to see it sustained. I observed the hearings with an understanding of the two sides, and I knew which side I was on, which team I was rooting for. I think that the confirmation hearings were a great success demonstration of the political issues involved. In this sense they were a great success.
But I have a special concern, a sociological one that is not strictly speaking political. It concerns the issue of free speech and free public life more generally. I fear that a political cultural ideal is being compromised, by one side, the other side of the great political debate. I know that a free public life depends upon keeping intellectual traditions . . .
Read more: A Tale of Two Justices: Kagan
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 23rd, 2010 
While the Tea Party and other political-right opposition attacks President Obama’s policies with outlandish arguments, Obama is forced to contend with both emotional arguments without factual basis and defending his administration’s positions persuasively. He has been criticized by party leaders and citizens alike for his mediated approach to attacks from the political right: will his calm censure be enough to have his argument heard? Only voters from the right and left will decide. My fear: The opposition’s tactics and arguments, while ridiculous, may be effective in swaying the voting public.
It has always been the case that the politics of America is a blend of cynicism and real democratic deliberation. I wrote about this extensively in my book, The Cynical Society. There are the sound bytes and the serious modes of deliberation. There are the media circuses and the deliberative chambers. And, there are slogans and extended reasonable arguments. But the proportions of the blend changes. During the election, Obama used serious persuasion more effectively than his opponents and his predecessors as a political tool. He consistently did this, most strikingly in his famous race speech in Philadelphia. A provocative compilation of the words of his minister Reverend Jeremiah Wright was used to insinuate that Obama was an angry Black man, a reverse racist. He responded with a carefully reasoned speech, addressing the problems and promise for racial understanding.
He has tried during his Presidency to do the same. This has led to aggressive attacks by his opponents. They attack not only in substance, but also in form, as he insists upon reasoned deliberate debate, his opponents flee from reason. Many have wondered whether his cool reasoned response to this has been wise. His critics within his Party, his fellow progressives, are most interesting in this regard.
There has been a concern that Obama has not been tough enough. That he has been too open to an opposition that has been unbending. He has offered respect and cooperation, while they have vilified and demonized him. And when his opposition does not demonize, it . . .
Read more: The Far, Far Right Battles Reason with Fear-Mongering
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 23rd, 2010 
The health care debate pitted the current administration against some familiar feeling foes. Though President Obama doesn’t seem to have expected it, the Republican-attack machine that distracted and embarrassed the Clinton administration is up to its old tricks. Using minute and displaced facts as well as fishing-boat whoppers to dissuade and disillusion an already frighted public, conservative lawmakers challenge this administration to fight back in kind–or risk losing the battle altogether.
Cynicism versus democracy the battle continues almost every day during the Obama Presidency. There was a serious debate to have on economic policy and health care reform, for example. There was a broad consensus that aggressive government action was necessary at the height of the financial crisis. Even the leading conservative economists understood that aggressive action was necessary. (link) But there have been reasonable debates about the shape of the action, (link) and after its success, there has been a debate about what actions should follow. (link) Yet, the tone of the opposition has not generally followed this course of criticism and opposition. Instead there have been the accusations of socialism and fascism.
On health care reform, there were crazy assertions of death panels and even a Republican senator who was engaged in a bipartisan effort at reform, warned about “pulling the plug on Grandma.” And thus serious conservatives wanting to engage in a serious debate about the issue found it impossible to do so. (link)
In the face of this gap, Obama actively acted as if he had faced a reasonable opposition for a long time, despite the evidence to the contrary, to the consternation of many of his supporters. He has faced the same sort of Republican attack machine that the Clintons did, and he has not prepared to meet it head on. As Paul Krugman put it “So far, at least, the Obama administration’s response to the outpouring of hate on the right has had a deer-in-the-headlights quality. It’s as if officials still can’t wrap their minds around the fact that things like this can happen to people who aren’t . . .
Read more: The Health Care Debates Rages: the Sleeping Elephant Rears its Head
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