I read the Mclemee interview you linked to this morning, and, an early garbled sentence aside, it's very good. I like the distinction he makes between religious and nationalistic exceptionalism. There's not much arguing with god's plan, but the secular believers tend to think it's the unfettered free market, without regard to other circumstances, that did the trick. Some of that belief "informed" the reconstruction of Iraq.
The idea that current globalism is analogous to the period ending in WWI is widespread, but Rauchway's point that we need to adjust our internal policies to reflect the world environment is good and useful. Also good about how no set of policies are likely to bring back the world that ended with Reagan.
Yes indeed. Missed his comment first time.
To which thread are you guys referring?
I've read the book, and it's interesting, although far enough outside of any area where I have much knowledge that I can't approach it critically.
LB, you're a blogger now. These sorts of disclaimers will only slow down your new-media, army-of-davids juggernaut.
And I should say that the linked article does a better job of summarizing the book's argument than I do.
Something I found interesting was the analysis of the Western states' attitude toward government. Rauchway discusses Western populism as being fundamentally directed against oppression from bankers and corporations -- the archetypical Western villain is Snidely Whiplash trying to foreclose on the farm. And the government, in part due to the disproportionate representation of Western States in the Senate, was seen as an ally against oppression by Capital.
This seems true to me, or at least in accordance with the tone of contemporary writing. Still, it was outside the scope of the book, so I couldn't expect this to be addressed, but I would have liked some argument on how 19thC Western populism (the little guy against Capital with the aid of the government) turned into late 20th C Western populism (the little guy identifying with Capital against the government).
7: I think Michael Kazin's book - Populist Persuasion? - takes on that question, but I haven't read it.
Here.
http://insidehighered.com/views/2006/08/23/mclemee
What's the link for? It's the same one from the post.
I think David Weman meant to say this:
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/week_2006_08_06.html#005280
In which a national treasure takes me to task.
That's interesting, but I was referring to Emerson's comment, the first one, to McLemee's column, and I think eb and Clownae were too.
Hey! Any thoughts on the change in the quality of Western populism I mentioned in 7 above, including "You'd know if you read chapter 4" or "Actually, I don't think 19th C populism could accurately be described as 'little guy v. Capital with the aid of the gov't'"?
15: Aaaah. I'd missed that. And it is an excellent comment.
Oh. Emerson is right on that point, of course. The point I make in the book is, this version of American exceptionalism is the one that matters most right now, to Americans, and to other people.
My link included the national treasure, for the benefit of people who didn't understand eb's comment.
I found it weird that no one even said "Hi there, ERic Rauchway" or bothered to note that the author turned up. No one even even acknowledged him except John, who dissed him. It's pretty funny, now that I think about it.
Now you're doing it again.
Oh, was 16 for me? Well, eb is right that Kazin in Populist Persuasion deals with this. The basic argument, as I remember it, is that there's a rhetorical tradition in which democracy is associated with working people, producers, who view elites as self-serving and undemocratic consumers. This rhetorical tradition is always available for anyone's use, and indeed gets picked up all the time. If it's become more right-wing over time, it's because it's become associated with consumer choices rather than with producer virtues. If that sounds vague and messy, it's probably more my fault than Kazin's; I don't have the book to hand.
19: I addressed Prof. Rauchway (although, admittedly, as "Hey"). But you're right, and this is inhospitable.
Prof. Rauchway: Glad to see you here, and thanks for responding to my email telling you about the post. Do make yourself at home, and again, thanks for showing up and talking about your very interesting book.
"Hey!" is just fine. So's "Eric". And being dissed by John Emerson is akin to internet celebrity. But thank you.
Hi Eric Rauchway!
I always sort of assumed that the reason the USA had no social safety net was that there was always the possibility that if a person was really desperate, he could go out west and steal some land from the savages, which hadn't been possible in European countries for many hundred years. But now our population has expanded to fill the country, and we still have no safety net becuase we still have the "pioneer" myth.
Now I will read your book.
It seemed to me from the interview that Professor Doctor Rauchway would think the Clinton Administration, with it's collective response to financial disasters and emphasis on fitting Americans for the global economy, was trying to do the kind of policy adaptation he was recommending. Was I right?
23: That's exactly what Orwell says about the West depicted by Twain:
In writing these books Mark Twain is not consciously writing a hymn to liberty. Primarily he is interested in "character," in the fantastic, almost lunatic variations which human nature is capable of when economic pressure and tradition are both removed from it. The raftsmen, Mississippi pilots, miners and bandits whom he describes are probably not much exaggerated, but they are as different from modern men, and from one another, as the gargoyles of a medieval cathedral. They could develop their strange and sometimes sinister individuality because of the lack of any outside pressure. The State hardly existed, the churches were weak and spoke with many voices, and land was to be had for the taking. If you disliked your job you simply hit the boss in the eye and moved further west; and moreover, money was so plentiful that the smallest coin in circulation was worth a shilling. The American pioneers were not supermen, and they were not especially courageous. Whole towns of hardy gold miners let themselves be terrorized by bandits whom they lacked the public spirit to put down. They were not even free from class distinctions. The desperado who stalked through the streets of the mining settlement, with a Derringer pistol in his waistcoat pocket and twenty corpses to his credit, was dressed in a frock coat and shiny top-hat, described himself firmly as a "gentleman" and was meticulous about table manners. But at least it was not the case that a man's destiny was settled from his birth. The "log cabin to White House" myth was true while the free land lasted.
Professor Doctor I don't pay: I think Emerson was actually right in the previous thread, that the Clinton administration had a laudable, or at least plausible, plan, but didn't quite deliver.
19 was written before I saw 16. I wasn't saying they were rude in that other thread, though maybe they were, just that it was odd.
Any work of history that starts with a 1066 And All That tag is OK by me.
The sense I get from LizardBreath's post is that Prof. Rauchway's argument is that there's a relatively consistent American 'political character' which was formed in the nineteenth/early twentieth century by the economic circumstances of the time. The sense I get from the McLemee interview is that Rauchway sees American political views as much more fluid, as something that gets reshaped generation by generation as the economic environment changes. (And he thinks that conditions in the nineteenth century have very little explanatory power for the way things are now: that's how I understand Rauchway saying, "Between the late 19th century and the present there’s a great deal of — I don’t want to say continuity, but commonality").
(Apologies LB if I misread your post's reading of the book).
If Prof. Rauchway's still around I'd be curious to know which is closer to what he's going for.
So, from TAP, we've had Yglesias, Klein, and Rauchway comment here. I'm shocked the guys have managed to refrain from a chorus of "But where's Garance Franke-Ruta?!" for this long.
The thing about the frontier is, Canada and Australia and Brazil and Argentina and lots of other countries had frontiers with (if you want to put it so bluntly) "savages" from whom white people could steal land. The frontier by itself doesn't explain that much. The question one has to answer (would it be tedious and self-promoting if I said, which I answer in my book?) is, what made the American frontier notably different.
Whole towns of hardy gold miners let themselves be terrorized by bandits whom they lacked the public spirit to put down.
I knew Orwell was ripping off Unfogged comment threads. He could have at least indicated whether he thought the bandits were "redeemed" or "civilized" by the love of good women.
27: It's cool. I do, in fact, get rather tongue-tied when real people (rather than you all, who I think of as my imaginary friends) show up: Brad DeLong has commented a couple of times, and while I'm very impressed by his blog, I find myself without much to say.
I suspect that may have been what happened in the earlier thread.
Any work of history that starts with a 1066 And All That tag is OK by me.
That was, in fact, ultra cool.
The question one has to answer (would it be tedious and self-promoting if I said, which I answer in my book?) is, what made the American frontier notably different.
You're right, the real stumbling block in all kinds of arguments about the U.S.'s strangeness is "Well then why isn't Canada that way?" (Michael Moore found this to be an impassible pons asinorum in "Bowling For Columbine").
But I haven't read your book yet.
I should perhaps clarify that I know it has the 1066 tag only from reading the first couple of pages on Amazon. I haven't read the book and my question in 28 is not faux-naive but straight up ignorant.
So, from TAP, we've had Yglesias, Klein, and Rauchway comment here. I'm shocked the guys have managed to refrain from a chorus of "But where's Garance Franke-Ruta?!" for this long.
Well, where is she? And how the hell do you pronounce her name, anyway? I can imagine it having 7 syllables, or 5 syllables. I can imagine several different possibilities for which syllables are accented. It's a Rorschach blot of a name.
I'm shocked the guys have managed to refrain from a chorus of "But where's Garance Franke-Ruta?!" for this long.
Guys know, immediately and instinctively, which girls aren't interested in playing, and GFR is definitely not interested in playing.
Orwell does touch on the easy availability of money, not just free land: "moreover, money was so plentiful that the smallest coin in circulation was worth a shilling."
To 28: I think the answer is "Both". Part of what is still different about the US is that things that happened in Europe in the late 19th C (the beginning of the formation of the comprehensive social welfare state, a strong labor/socialist movement) didn't happen, or happened very differently, here, and we're still feeling those effects. And current conditions are in many ways like those that led to 19thC American exceptionalism.
But Canada did take a lot of the habitable land. The Northwest Territories, not so much.
Felix—yes, what LizardBreath says in the second half of 38; both. There's a critical period in the end of the nineteenth century, when states around the world are making adjustments to industry, and the U.S. is too, but the U.S. occupies a different place in that world than most other countries.
Then, after 1918 (and the watershed ably marked by Sellar and Yeatman) the U.S. occupied a different place in the world, but unwisely kept the same policy framework in place. Americans partly learned their lesson over the ensuing few decades. But we have lately, I think, begun to unlearn it.
Cryptic Ned—all I can say is, without giving the milk away for free, that the Canadians developed their frontier differently than the Americans. No, not to be so obscure; the government played a greater role in other countries' frontiers than it did in the Americans'.
I linked yesterday to the Malcolm Gladwell piece on pension structures and the decline of American companies in the current New Yorker. Management is in an ideological bind and hasn't determined to get out. There is a desperate need for what this means for global competitiveness to be part of the debate, but there doesn't seem to be any way to bring it up.
there doesn't seem to be any way to bring it up
Well, I tried writing a book about this sort of thing, and for my pains, I got dissed by John Emerson. What, as Tony Soprano would say, are you gonna do?
all I can say is, without giving the milk away for free, that the Canadians developed their frontier differently than the Americans. No, not to be so obscure; the government played a greater role in other countries' frontiers than it did in the Americans'.
Well, you're well up on Healy, who won't even tell us if we have a moral obligation to shoot people for their kidneys.
I confess myself a bit confused as to what aspect of American exceptionalism is being explained here. If the exception is the US's relative resistance, among western countries, to social welfare policies I would wonder: a) is it really true that the US is so exceptional, b)does not the divergence between US and European practice largely take place in the latter half of the 20th century?, c) are not comparisons between European states and a substnatially less centralized pre-New Deal US misleading?
Reading the post's first link would give you a start on those questions.
Guys know, immediately and instinctively, which girls aren't interested in playing, and GFR is definitely not interested in playing.
It's a shame, but I'm not sure you can blame her. I think she adverted to the fact that she had been cyberstalked in the past. I'd be hesitant to show up anywhere outside the comforting confines of my own site if that had happenned to me. And even at TAPPED, she's gotten shelled of late, often unfairly, in the comments. Another shame, as she seems to be off her game as a result.
You're such a Nice Guy, Timbot, you little weasel.
45:
baa, these are good questions, and the key is your phrase, "so exceptional" (emphasis added). When you use a word like "exceptional", you have to be careful. I do this by trying to quantify, as much as possible, the phenomena under examination. So to take your questions one at a time,
a) Yes.
b) No.
c) No; the analysis includes municipal and state as well as national spending on social policies.
In the book there are even graphs and tables.
I have never dissed Garance. Yglesias, yes. Klein, yes. Charles not-Sanders Pierce, yes. Rauchway, yes. It's her loss, obviously. My innate chivalry prevents me from treating her as a serious player.
>Reading the post's first link would give you a start on those questions.
I did! And I'm still confused at the application LB made of Rauchway's thesis (more, and earlier US exposure to globalization) and the exceptionalism to be explained (US
Just to note, I am inclined to agree with Rauchway that the US experience with immigration has immensely far-reaching political consequences. I remain a bit confused at how thew argument goes with respect to social welfare policy, where so much of 'the action' seems to occur post 1950. In 1937, e.g., would one have said the US was less friendly to social welfare policies than the UK or France?
re: 49. Graphs, tables! Well, good enough. I guess I think of the UK ramping up on social welfare post Atlee, but this is emphatically not substantiated by rigorous analysis. And I suppose we cannot tempt you to give a little bit more of the argument away here for free, eh? I promise, every comment makes by you makes me 1% more likely to slip your book into the "staff recommends" section of the Harvard Bookstore.
50: I'd never read that locus classicus for the nice guy controversy before. She's very decent about it, and I don't think a year and more of heat has added any more light.
belongs in that glossary, which can be referred to even if we never expect it to be compiled.
I think the brief version is: when nice guys are also losers, the loser attribute dominates.
To know whether that 1% really matters, I need to know where you started (0% likely? 49.1%?).
One more point, anyway: the book has a whole chapter on the American way of war as shaped in this period, which McLemee and I didn't even get around to discussing. Think what thrills await you!
Think what thrills await you!
A think for each page! Just one think after another.
Didn't David Bernstein write a book? Shouldn't we be buying that?
What's Unfogged's cut of Rauchway's proceeds anyway?
I dunno: Eric, do we get a percentage?
Of my lifelong affection and gratitude? Sure. Beyond that? Do you know how lousy are the economics of the book-selling racket?
Do you know how lousy are the economics of the book-selling racket?
Let me guess, we can learn all about it in your other book?
You know, ogged, if you'd focused on Healy like this, maybe we could have "acquired" a kidney for you.
It's a Rorschach blot of a name.
If I had it to do all over again, I think I'd name my daughters Garance Franke-Ruta and Ofeibea Quist-Arcton.
This is a blog that can always use lifelong affection and gratitude, I suppose. Although cash is nice too.
Ogged, when they start poor-mouthing you, that's the time to turn on the heat. Liberal political wonk books pay off in the high six / low seven figures. That's how Michael Moore got fat.
Liberal political wonk books pay off in the high six / low seven figures
From your mouth to God's ears, John. I tell you what, the next time Unfogged does a fund drive, the generosity of my contribution will indubitably reflect the number of books I've sold between now and then.
The undergrad survey staple is where the real money lies in nontextbook academic writing.
Well, it's as close as you get to real money. But it's not very close. Because, unlike a textbook, an undergrad survey staple doesn't get updated every couple of years. So the returns from course assignments get depleted once there are enough used copies out there circulating.
Unless your book is so good that the average undergraduate wants to keep it, rather than sell it back. Which is of course my goal.
re: 56
Oh, I can tell you that the relative gain from each comment is high. This is the fast track to a blurb from Amartya Sen on the paperback version. He shops there regularly. And we know you must have the four paragraph summary from the book proposal, so it's just a cut-and-paste job.
Just buy the book, baa. If you found Lewis compelling and convincing, there's a good chance you'll want to have Rauchway's baby after reading it.
Eric, the trick is in where you place the decimal.
"[Y]ou'll want to have Rauchway's baby after reading it."
See, now that's a blurb.
Back cover of the paperback edition?
Now SCMT, why you have to be hating on Lewis like that. His assessment of the decline of Islamic culture is sober and humane. Humane I say!
"[Y]ou'll have Rauchway's baby after reading it."
This might be an off-putting cover blurb for a lot of people.
That blurb is more appropriate for a book about organ donation.
29, 36 -- I always thought Standpipe Bridgeplate was GFR's pseud.
You didn't "always [think]" that.
I was unpackign some books a while ago, got bored and flipped through my 5th-year anniversary college report. Garance was a classmate of mine. Also a classmate: Andrei Cherny, but I actually knew him through another friend.
SB's too vibrant to be the GFR of today.
No way. I'm totally hidebound.
GFR's pseud.
Thanks to the last study I worked on, I consistently read this as glomerular filtration rate.
'Cause I typed GFR at least 400 times in that final report, and it certainly had nothing to do with Ms. Franke-Ruta.
This thread has been really weird to read, thanks much all.
80 -- Urk! Caught in a fib!
84 -- cool. I had glomerular nephritis one time. (What is a glomerule?)
What is a glomerule?
It's a little ball of capillaries that leak into the Bowman's capsule that surrounds each one. The cortex of the kidney has billions of them and they leak out something like 150-170 liters of plasma a day (!!!) that's then filtered by the medulla and reabsorbed back into the bloodstream.
Huh, makes sense. The glomerular nephritis seemed to involve the plasma not being properly reabsorbed, and pissed out of me instead. It was not a happy time for me.