The Huge Inarticulate Beast
I was discussing with a friend the sorry state of things when it comes to getting congress to enact good policies, and he dragged up this quote from Richard Hofstadter’s “Reflections on Violence in the United States”:
When one considers American history as a whole, it is hard to think of any very long period in which it could be said that the country has been consistently well governed. And yet its political system is, on the whole, a resilient and well-seasoned one, and on the strength of its history one must assume that it can summon enough talent and good will to cope with its afflictions. To cope with them — but not, I think, to master them in any thoroughly decisive or admirable fashion. The nation seems to slouch onward into its uncertain future like some huge inarticulate beast, too much attainted by wounds and ailments to be robust, but too strong and resourceful to succumb.
So, you know, the problems of today are hardly unique. It’s always been tough out there.
18 Responses to “The Huge Inarticulate Beast”
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June 20th, 2009 at 11:33 am
It will end in violence. Not soon, but inevitably.
June 20th, 2009 at 11:51 am
A question for Matt, who seems to be a Canadian politics buff: Has Canada ever been consistently well-governed? How can one make a quantitative comparison of culturally similar countries (basically, Canada and Australia) as to their well-governedness? Are there contemporary sources commenting on the quality of governance from periods we identify retrospectively as being well governed? Are they more cheerful about their government than Matt is about the U.S. today?
June 20th, 2009 at 11:57 am
You could have said the same about the Roman Empire. Someone probably did. Come to think of it, Hofstadter does sound a little like a translation from the Latin …
June 20th, 2009 at 11:58 am
I think this comment by Hofstadter is really about the human condition and life, and applies to all nations and peoples. This is not just American. It’s an observation about the bigger picture; maybe Hof didn’t realize that.
June 20th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Through most of America’s history, the rest of the world was ruled by kings and despots. We were actually well governed in comparison. Now, there are a lot of countries run much better than this one.
Really, this quote seems more like a very artsy version of ‘hey, it’s always been shit and we’re still here.” Such statements are always true, until they aren’t any more.
June 20th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Re: It will end in violence. Not soon, but inevitably.
If you wait long enough, violence enters in every nation’s history.
June 20th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Whats amazing is, Matt has apparently given up on trying to convince those of us who aren’t Obamabots that Obama and the Democrats are great leaders. He’s retreated into an attempt to convince us that leadership doesn’t matter because we probably won’t all die.
June 20th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Sounds like the European Union. It slouches forward. It would be scary if there was too much policy direction from Brussels. There is, for example, no common foreign policy. No common bank bailout pot. And no federal tax.
June 20th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I think you can argue that Euro-settled US began with huge advantages: vast resources, no encompassing feudal social organization, timing vis-a-vis technological development.
At the times in our economic history when pro-growth, private-led economic development has required reactive and proactive assistance by way of public policy and infrastructure, this has been forthcoming.
However, the present and immediate future requires forms of integrated proactive measures (addressing global warming, health care, energy production, demilitarization, and government financing), that are not explicitly pro-growth in orientation while requiring even more technocratic expertise in implementation.
In other words, effective public policy must now be proactive and wide-ranging without being able to appeal to the immediate self-interest of the economic and political elite. I don’t think one argues with undue present-bias that these are unique challenges that have a slim chance of being met.
June 20th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
When one considers American history as a whole, it is hard to think of any very long period in which it could be said that the country has been consistently well governed.
As others noted, I’m not sure there is a major country about which this could not be said. The thing is, every generation or two we do get short-to-medium periods in which a burst of significant progress is made on various issues. So I’m not sure the slouching beast image is actually appropriate.
June 20th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
This implies that governance is a singular item when it is actually made up of many parts and aspects.
I would say its impossible for all aspects to work perfectly all the time, but I would also say that we’ve rarely experienced times when all aspects falter at the same time although the Bush administration came frighteningly close.
I’m reminded of the repair crews that work on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. By the time the repair crew gets to the far end, the beginning is already in need of repair again.
We’d all like to see so many messes fixed in their entirety with a quickness, but let us not forget how many things were truly going wrong and the progress made on many fronts.
To throw in another metaphor, we can only tune one string of the harp at a time, and must do so while never ceasing to play the song.
June 20th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Shorter Matt: “Why won’t they do what CAP tells them to do? I swear it will work!”
June 20th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
It’s likely not a bug but a feature. Here is Hanna Pitkin on Madison’s design, as put forth in the Federalist Papers:
“For Madison, the welfare of the nation is achieved by inaction and stability….The task of representative government is thus, in a sense, to bring the major social forces into the legislature and keep them there until time passes” (195)
June 20th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
The word “Slouch” reminded me of Yeats’ “Second Coming.” A poem not off the topic.
June 20th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Would the founders I wonder, have made the same system if they knew that the system they created would be a major reason of the extinction of humanity? (Due to climate change.)
Surely mob rule is better than the entire universe empty of sentient life. (And until we find another species, we are damn justified in thinking of it that way!)
June 21st, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Re:L Would the founders I wonder, have made the same system if they knew that the system they created would be a major reason of the extinction of humanity? (Due to climate change.)
Huh? Climate change could make the world mightily unpleasant and a the extreme result in a demographic crash from famine and disease. But I cannot think of any scenario where it renders a highly adaptive species like humankind lierally extinct. I don’t even think nuclear war could acheive that. (We have enough nukes to kill everyone, but in a real war they would not be distribued in a pattern that would do that). To get rid of hmankind you’re going to need something of cosmic scale: a realy huge asteroid strike, a nearby supernova sterilizing the Earth with gamma rays– that sort of thing. Turning up the thermostat five or even ten degrees will be very bad for humankind’s fortunes, but won’t kill everyone.
June 21st, 2009 at 2:32 pm
For a jaw-dropping summary of the seemingly irresistible US propensity to impose itself on other countries, please see:
http://www.krysstal.com/democracy_whyusa02.html
As the “beast” slouches, it certainly doesn’t have any qualms about throwing its weight around.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:02 am
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