Some time ago, a buddy of mine posted this article up on his facebook. Since I’m always intrigued by interesting articles, whether I agree with them or not, I went ahead and gave it a gander. It was good piece by Mr. Hallman, and it brought up a lot of very good points. I left a short response on the comment section, and by the time I had gotten to the end of my comment, I decided to ask Mr. Hallman if he would be willing to have a bit of a back and forth on the topic of the article and about the topic of his new book, “In Utopia”. He graciously obliged, and over the course of the past week and a half we have been having an email “debate” on the subject. The following is the results of that debate. Feel free to comment and give your 10 cents (or however much you may think it is worth), however if you are reading this anywhere other than my main site, please abstain from commenting anywhere but Matters of Opinion. This is to keep Mr. Hallman from having to scour the internet in search of the different comments regarding our exchange. Again, I would like to thank Mr. Hallman for taking the time out of his busy schedule to have a respectable debate, and I hope that any comments left respect that fact, and that he didn’t have to, in any way, correspond to a person who holds very different view points than him and is very different ideologically. I hope you all enjoy!
My responses are in italics, while Mr. Hallmans are in bold.
| Mr. Hallman, after reading your article about your recent argument with your father, I must say, I’m half with you and half not. I agree, Ayn Rand is definitely not the best writer that I have come across. “Atlas Shrugged” was an interesting book as far as the ideas contained, but the writing itself was dry and, as you pointed out, the ideas themselves were not new ideas. One can certainly tell that she is more of a pseudo-philosopher than fiction writer, and while that may work (to a degree) with her books “Capitalism: An Unknown Ideal” and “The Virtue of Selfishness”, it made “Atlas Shrugged” a bit of a chore to read. I also agree with your assessments about Rand Paul, and (partly) about Glenn Beck. However, all three of those named (both Rand’s and Beck) don’t really identify with conservatives, even though you use the term conservative through out your essay. They all three identify themselves as libertarians. While there are many similarities, there are also many important differences, and a lot of conservatives don’t identify with the libertarian side of the Republican party. For example, a great book to reference would be “The Conservative Mind”, by Kirk. He compiled a collection of great conservative thinkers and their works, from Burke to Eliot, in this book, and does much to dispel the myths that libertarianism is the back-bone of conservatism. I suppose my first question regarding the article (and, I imagine, the substance of your new book “In Utopia”, due out this August through St. Martins Press) is whether or not classical conservatism has been confused with libertarianism because of people like Beck and Paul, and if in fact it has, do you make those distinctions in your new book? |
Yes, I suppose it’s fair to say that at least in this “Ayn Rand Paul” piece, for lack of a better summary, I’ve allowed myself to get sucked into the current meme narrative: that the “right,” in general, is being taken over by this particular wing of libertarianism. The truth is a whole lot more complicated than that — and spatial metaphors begin to break down. Both the “left” and the “right” are broad umbrellas of possibility, and, truth be told, the very far right and the very far left might be surprised to discover that they have more in common with each other than either does with the center. Which means that you and I probably have more in common with each other than either of us does with the far right or left, respectively. That’s an easy thing to forget, I think, as our society sinks further and further into a bifurcation that damages it. Suffice it to say, my book does not suffer from the same short-sightedness as my article! That is to say, I think the book contains portraits of both earnest conservatives and those I find extreme. The first is a portrait of capitalist utopian Knut Kloster Jr., one of the founders of the modern cruise ship industry — his visions of cruise ships serving an important societal service by fostering cultural exchange among nations is one that not many on the far left could empathize with, but I had to at least admit, on meeting him, that he meant it earnestly. Not so with the founder of the gun utopia I interviewed — a guy who hoped to build a master-planned community around a gun school in the same way neighborhoods surround golf courses. Him I found to simply be a “greed is good” conservative, which I can’t accept as anything other than a rationale for, well, greed — which isn’t good.
To my mind, as I was writing IN UTOPIA, it all boiled down to whether one truly believed the world could be actually egalitarian. I have further thoughts on that, but I’ll let you respond before I go into it…
I’ll certainly agree that there is a large flux of libertarianism that has recently been brought front and center to the Republican party, and while I share some of the libertarian ideals (smaller, more effective government and fiscal responsibility, for example), I differ with them on many of their staples (foreign policy being perhaps the biggest, for me at least). I agree, as well, that many on the far right have a lot in common with the far left. That is, with me considering the furthest right to be an anarchic state with the far left being despotism, whether that be a form of Communism or Marxism or whatever form it would appear in, because one can not achieve despotism with out anarchy and disorder first. A despot can not overtake a nations government with out having the initial trust of the people, and is always voted into power. Another fine example, if one looks back at the contrasting history between Marx and Disraeli. Both were Jewish people in about the same time in history in Europe who disliked liberalism and what it entailed (particularly, in both cases, the lack of ideology and principles that plagued liberalism of that time), and worked to change “the game”, as it were. Marx, as most know, started work on his “Communist Manifesto”, while Disraeli joined up with the Tory party of England and worked to make it more conservative. Disraeli achieved some major reforms that are still present in England today, and…well…we know what happened with Marx’s Communism. Regardless, those two reformers at the time may have been polar opposites, but they had a common liberal “enemy”.
Regardless, however, my own thoughts on utopias stems from the fact that, while I may be a “conservative with a handful of libertarian tendencies” (which is how I usually classify myself politically), at heart I’m a realist. Realistically, utopias, at least on a grandiose scale, are unachievable because no two people have the exact same utopia in mind. Even if one were to have a utopia that would be perhaps “more right” or “more left”, sort of a middle ground utopia to make more happy on one side or the other, ultimately government would have to break it up. This is my reasoning: Let’s say, for example, there were a left leaning utopia established in America at the ballot, and the majority could craft the country however they see fit. If one of the biggest staples of government, pretty universally accepted, is that the job of the government is to protect the minority who doesn’t have a voice, wouldn’t that cause the ballot measure to be bunk because the governmental duties to protect the minority would have to be applied? I don’t believe we could have anything like an egalitarian government, because realistically, capitalism is the only system that can establish free states, and with capitalism there are always going to be people who make more money (mainly because those people are the ones supplying the jobs for the others) and once true Egalitarianism is implemented, there is no reason for the job suppliers to supply the jobs at all. Not “greed is good”, but rather “you can’t get something for nothing”, or perhaps “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”.
Now we begin to depart from each other! There are a few assertions here that I feel ought to be addressed — I’ll try to take them on methodically.
I disagree with how you characterize the point of convergence between the far right and the far left — mainly in how you describe the end point of “Communism or Marxism.” You imply that the “despotism” is the goal. While it may be true that those attempts there have been at state-wide communism have produced despots, I don’t think it’s fair to characterize that as the intended goal. (Who’s to say what would have become of the Soviet Union had Trotsky prevailed?) That’s not the intent at all — and even my experience in IN UTOPIA speaks to that. In one chapter of the book, I tell the story of spending three weeks at the country’s oldest active commune, Twin Oaks, a working communism. You can’t really say they have a despot – no one is truly in charge. And yet they’re thriving, defying the old rule that these kinds of utopia don’t work. Indeed, it seems to me that if we’re worried about too much centralized power in a single figure, we need to worry about the American right’s efforts to consolidate power in the presidency. The implication here is that a quality of “leadership” will magically defy all the downsides of a despot. Yet it’s this same consolidation of power that threatens to defy the basic power-sharing principles of government that are supposed to be our way of improving on Rome, or, say, Sparta — both of which emphasized powerful leaders at times of war. (And Sparta, incidentally, for all the interest in it generated by the film 300, is one of the earliest models for communism.)
The second major point that I think needs to be addressed is the realist argument that you present — that you can’t have egalitarianism because people don’t believe equally what the best possible system is. But I think even the United States is evidence that people can live according to a set of common principles, even if their every desire is not answered at every moment. We’re a country founded on principles of freedom, opportunity, and power-sharing government. We disagree about what those things mean, and fight over them, but for the most part they are the shared, core values that prove that a society can be based on agreed-upon building blocks. If that wasn’t the case, wouldn’t we have seen a coup by now? Wouldn’t the right or the left, on losing the presidency, have simply said no, we’re not leaving? The United States already is striving toward egalitarianism in that it has moved consistently toward empowerment for all — one person, one vote. As to realism, I think you have to have a pretty tin ear to not hear the utopian longing in the phrase “In order to form a more perfect union.” My conclusion is this: utopia is not about naivete or being unrealistic, it’s about recognizing that the best possible progress we can make is a function of striving after the perfect that the Constitution tasks us to pursue. Remember, when the Constitution itself was written (and the Founding Fathers were quite familiar with James Harrington’s Oceana, a popular utopia at the time…and they lift ideas from it), it would have been characterized as “too good to be true.”
Finally, I think you make a big leap in suggesting that only capitalism can create free states. Capitalism has certainly emerged as the winner of the -ism battles of the twentieth century, though it hasn’t succeeded in supplanting the others entirely. The problem with capitalism is that a system based entirely on competition ensures that there are those who “lose,” whose businesses fail, who are beaten by those who figure out how to make their businesses run better, or offer better prices, or whatever. The question for capitalism has always been this: what level of squalor can we accept for those who lose? Consider Detroit, consider deep Appalachia. Even Obama describes himself as a free market guy — yet what do we do for those who lose? Retain faith in the pull-up-the-bootstraps mentality? Some of us can’t stomach that, or don’t believe that opportunity will provide for all who give it a good effort. Some succeed because they are lucky, and some fail because they are unlucky — and those latter people should not suffer. It seems to me that the entire debate on the size of government boils down to this question. Even your note makes an uncomfortable assumption — that somehow liberals WANT big government. That’s not the case at all. I don’t know anyone who wants a huge government. What people want is a government that is large enough to actually fulfill the promises our society makes to its people — and there’s nothing wrong with that. The real “utopian” belief, in the derisive sense of the word, is that any -ism will somehow magically provide for a significant portion of its populace that is living in conditions we cannot, morally and ethically, accept.
I figured at some point we’d find some areas of disagreement, ha ha, otherwise this would have been far too easy for either of us.
I suppose my points of dissent start with your ascertainment (as I’ve heard many people on the left say) that communism doesn’t necessarily have to end in a despotism. History has shown us otherwise. Country’s of any real size or power simply can not have a communist form of government, because there are far too many people to properly control and help. There’s not a doubt in my mind that “communes” exist in the Eastern part of our globe (monks and what not’s do, after all, have a communist type of society), however the biggest reason that those little communes exist (aside from their size, which is small enough to enable that type of livelihood as compared to the old U.S.S.R., which because the size of the country under communist rule had starving Russians and agitated people with no liberties) is the religious essence that comes along with those communes. For example, many of those monks practice Tao Te Ching and work towards a higher level of being and selflessness. That aspect of the communes actually coincides very well with conservative thought. Conservative thinkers place much emphasis on religion for a couple of reasons. One, they know that capitalism has the possibility to produce greedy individuals, and so religious teachings and a religious society helps to protect against those problems by teaching that greed is not Christian, to steal is sin, etc. etc. Two, because of mans nature, a higher power must be established so that there is a “wrong” versus a “right”. Not everything in this world is a matter of relativity. To murder in cold blood is wrong. To rape is wrong. To molest a child is wrong. And our laws and over all societal thought reflect this and other freedoms, as opposed to the communist despots whom discourage dissent and don’t allow free presses, “have no gay individuals” (which means they murder those that come out of the closet), and try and turn the head of state into a religious figure so that the government can become a sort of religion. China, Venezuela, Cuba, the old U.S.S.R…these countries all have that in common. Each communist country, in order to maintain order and control, discourages and even murders for dissenting thought.
As far as your analogy that America could, in itself, be considered a sort of “utopia”, yeah, I suppose in a sense one could say that, depending on ones definition of “utopia”. When I think of utopias, and in my writings thus far, utopias have been a much further reaching thing. After all, my home is my own little utopia. I do what I want inside of it, it is decorated to my own pleasure, and because of property rights my freedom as a land owning American allows me to create a tiny little “Travisopia”. In that sense then yes, I can see where utopias are achievable, however much further from that, I’m sorry, realism sets in and I think of the Berlin wall being erected to keep people inside the “communist dream”. Human nature will not allow that any utopia will stay exactly the same. Boredom will prevail, and people will eventually give up a society where all is provided because of the lack of excitement and the lack of possibility’s. Stephen King has an excellent short story about a 20-something kid who is offered a job which entails: nothing. His job is to not have contact with any of his old friends. Anything he wants is provided to him, as long as he just writes it down a week ahead of time, and if he has any spare change, he is to dump it down the storm drain in front of the apartment. At first, one would think it was a pretty good deal. However, as the story goes on, the kid gets bored and leaves (which, then, since it’s Stephen King a long horror story ensues, but regardless, it’s an interesting example).
As far as capitalism creating freedoms, time and time again through history, capitalism has been the only thing to allow such liberties as we enjoy today. That’s not to say that absolutely no reforms or rules are to be allowed (I believe I had referenced Ayn Rand’s piece on child labor laws not being necessary, which of course they are, for example). Certain rules against things like insider trading and fraud are of course necessary. However for every bad thing we witness on television about the supposed “evils of capitalism”, there are a million other businesses, both large and small, thriving and playing the game by the rules to supply cheaper goods for the poor/middle class and provide jobs with decent wages, all in the name of self interest and making a buck, while simultaneously benefiting every other member of society as well. Sure, there are reports of some people whom “go hungry” (in an age where a double cheeseburger at McDonald’s only costs a dollar, I’m not sure why there are hungry people at all, but regardless) and there are those that are homeless. However, when you look at the statistics for the poor and the amenities that they have, it’s staggering. Most have at least one television set. More than half have a vehicle. I just get tired of the whining, really. Look, don’t get me wrong Mr. Hallman, I wasn’t exactly born with a silver enema or anything. I had a good period where I lived out of my truck. There have been times where I’ve lived off of Ramen so that my wife can eat better than me. I know what it’s like to have rough times. Hell, even decent times in my household doesn’t mean we can eat steak and drink white wine every night! Are there those that fail, for their own fault of other peoples? Sure. And I, and many others in America, don’t have a problem with welfare and food stamps to help those people out, with in reason. As a whole, however, capitalism does more good than bad, and it allows people to have a freedom to work for their money, buy whatever they want, and not be messed with by the government. And if they work extra hard? Well, maybe the boss may give them a raise and he/she can even take a little vacation to a commune spa as well. Let me ask this, Mr. Hallman: do you think your books and articles you have written (and are paid royalties for, I’m sure) would even see the light of day if you lived in Cuba?
Your last point is a good one — and it’s a point I think I make in my second book (about William James, ardent defender of religion) when I examine modern Atheism, categorizing it as a religion in and of itself, and pointing out — as atheists know well — that they can only profess open atheism in a society that stresses religious freedom.
But we have to be careful to apply history equally. William James is quick to point to all the good that religion brings to the world — but that doesn’t fully exonerate it, in his mind, from having generated the sentiments that resulted in the Crusades and the Inquisition.
Same goes for utopian thought — conservative or liberal. And I’m a bit concerned that our exchange is a bit too quickly edging toward a Communism = Utopianism, Capitalism = Reality model. That’s not the case at all — and recall that our conversation was triggered by a piece I wrote about conservative utopias.
Utopia must be broadly defined, if only because it’s quite easy to point to the utopian novels that stress the very ideology that you’re suggesting actually distinguish it from utopian thought. Freeland, by Hertzka, is a great example. The Coming Race, by Bulwer-Lytton. Note that many of these utopians deny being utopias at all — that’s practically a defining characteristic of utopias! Marx and Engels too…they built off Owen and Fourier, but made the argument that they were moving from utopia to “science.”
Utopia, as an adjective, simply describes the scope of a vision. It doesn’t say anything at all about the nature of a particular vision.
The religious question is a bit different. You’re right to point out that communal efforts that emphasize a common religion have tended to be more successful. But (probably because I’d just written a book about religion) I wanted to look at utopias — architectural, conceptual, even communal — that were not religious, but which seemed to be working on some level. (Even the cruise ship I mentioned earlier, a capitalist utopia, lacks religion.) And this would apply to the United States, as well. Again, it’s something we’ve struggled with over the years, but the United States has survived and thrived without stressing a common religion (and it was the downside of a common state-sanctioned religion that set people running from Europe and the UK in the first place). Other modern societies — countries in Scandinavia, Japan — are fully functional states that are far more secular than the United States. So while religion can in fact serve as a bonding element for a society, it’s not the only one that can work — and it’s one that, like utopian ideas, has the potential to create problems even as it solves them.
The reason that I think countries such as the before mentioned Japan can thrive with a more secular society is that they have a very solid traditional system. It’s not just religion that can create a common bonding of principles for people in a society: after all, I had mentioned the Tao Te Ching, and that isn’t a religion, more of a means of enlightenment. It’s the societal sense of knowing what is right and what is wrong and is what sets people and governments apart from pure, unadulterated anarchism. Religion is what worked for this country, and many other countries across the globe to instill those values, and I think it’s natural for people to crave a higher power, be it God, Allah, or simply “the force”.
The only reason I use the communism model so much in the conversation is because communism is typically what is referenced when utopias are conversed about, although yes, I agree, there are “right” Utopian ideals as well, all though they are usually kind of the “anti-Utopian” concept, to more moderate conservatives like myself, because we think of “Utopian society’s” in the form of an all powerful leader in the form of a human, and the idea of a man taking the place of God or another spiritual figure has the possibility of being despotism, but I don’t want to start simply repeating past parts of the conversation and bore the life out of the readers.
I can definitely see where your piece about Ayn Rand, using a more broader use of the term Utopian than many in society typically use the term, is in and of itself a Utopian ideal of no government infractions on businesses. I suppose it is a bit more difficult for myself to characterize those ideals as, in there own way, Utopian, because my ideological belief system is closer to that line of thinking than, say, the communist model. Although I reject both ideas: an all powerful government, and no government at all, both leave a sour taste in my mouth make me shake my head and point out the flaws of both ways of thinking. And the paradox of it all, as we talked about earlier, is that anarchy is necessary to allow a “big government” model to be achieved. I suppose that’s what makes America so different from anything else in the world, that we have the freedom to create, in our own homes and in our own ways, our own little utopias.
I typically try and stay away from strict ideological arguments, because so often they turn nasty, although I must say it’s been a pleasure conversing with you, Mr. Hallman, and I look forward to reading your book “In Utopia”. Is it going to be found, say, in Borders or a Barnes and Nobles, or will I and my readers need to order it from a separate online source?
Yes, I’ve enjoyed it too. Utopia is a great example, I think, of how the opposite sides of a debate can talk a lot “at” each other when they’re not even agreeing about the basic terms of the debate. But we’ve made some progress here, and perhaps that’s all anyone can hope for.
And, yes, the book should be available widely — Border, B&N, Amazon, of course, as well as, probably, independent bookstores just about everywhere. Thanks much.
Brian Donegan is the founder of the Can Do Conservatives, a great group to give a voice to the handicapped conservatives of the party.
Travis Gearhart
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