Helpy Heroism?

Michael Gerson almost always deserves the swats he receives. But the back of my hand hovered in the air this morning (instead of swiftly descending) when I read his mockup of conservative thought today: pulled between the two 'vital' camps of libertarianism and Catholic social thought.

Having set up an arrestingly plausible schema however Gerson proceeded at once to misjustify it. The main difference between libertarian and Catholic social thought is sin, not helping people; what you must not do, not what you must. The libertarian moral credo -- I do not think this is being controversial -- is "Harm yourself only so long as you harm no one else." The Catholic moral credo -- and that of a lot of non-Catholics, too -- is "The libertarian moral credo is misleading, incoherent, and wrong." If you want to find supporters of gluttony, for example, a good place to start is with libertarians; but even more central to the split is the example of consenting de Sades (not just in pairs, of course). Libertarians cannot, and, as a matter of principle, should not, stop an orgy. The trouble is that often libertarians move from that political position to a moral position of neutrality or even endorsement of orgies. The trouble for Catholics and others is the temptation to move in the reverse direction: from moral condemnation to political persecution of, in this example, orgiasts.

Of course there are libertarians who would tolerate a ban on orgies in certain places and Catholics who would understand why a ban on orgies shouldn't be a Constitutional amendment. But Gerson is quite wrong to skip over these moral differences and focus on the much less significant difference between the thumbnail libertarian and Catholic positions on Helping People. And indeed he focuses on those positions as political ones:

As the Republican candidates attempt to prove themselves the exemplars of conservatism, they should consider what that philosophy can mean: the application of conservative and free-market ideas to the task of helping everyone.

Which brings me to helpy heroism. In an age when heroism on the old aristocratic model is either no longer available or foreclosed to almost all people almost all the time, what will gratify our very human urge to be heroes? Crises -- global warming leaps to mind -- create certain opportunities, but how much self-satisfaction can you really get out of cutting your carbon emissions by five percent or reducing your output of nonrecyclables? It might surprise no one to discover that I detect a psychologization of heroism in this democratic age of ours: the importance of feeling like a hero grows to meet the importance of being a hero. But, unlike a lot of other cases, here I don't think the importance of being a hero is going away. In fact every day we want to hear about everyday heroes; every day we want there to be heroes doing heroic things.

This forks into two different everyday heroisms. One is repeated but really exceptional: firefighters, for instance, fit here. The 9/11 firefighters are the apotheosis of this type of hero. The other is not really exceptional but also repeated: mothers, nurses, doctors, teachers, etc. You could roughly label these two types of everyday heroes as 'savers' and 'carers' -- or, in more shrinky terms, those who help cure us and those who help us cope. Heroic deeds in a democratic age are, like most deeds in a democratic age, self-referential with regard to individuals and the public together. We valorize individuals who help other individuals repeatedly.

Nothing wrong with that -- or, maybe I should say, better than some of the big alternatives. The problem is that the best heroism on this model is both the most inclusive and most far-reaching: the more of us individuals who can together experience helping cure other large numbers of individuals or helping them them cope, the better. As Gerson shows, the natural terminus of this longing is to help everyone. Catholic social thought would presumably supply the idea that there is a Good common to the nation / world / human species. And libertarian thought would supply us the science of economics that tells us how to unleash the spontaneous collective action of helpy heroes.

This has obvious political implications. But the linkup of these two different strands of thought is not obvious. One of the smartest and most famous Catholic social thinkers, the Aristotelian Thomist moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, quite bluntly states that the state and the market are fatal impediments to achieving the good life that must be affirmatively rejected by everyone who recognizes how much we humans all need one another's help. It is only a slight step to the conclusion that the state and the market prevent us from recognizing and attending to our characteristic human fragility.

Whether or not you agree with MacIntyre, Gerson's suggestion is anything but a slam dunk. It would appear to be motivated less by careful analysis than by that damned optimism thing again: the dual notions that good people given power make powerfully good things happen -- and that all that good people need to go in order to get power is to take it. This is bad enough to begin with, insofar as it respects power but forgets how to fear it. For the optimist fear is just a problem of inadequate knowledge. But then pair this optimism with a totalizing project aimed at instrumentalizing power through politics for the moral good of everyone.

Am I the only one (besides MacIntyre) who sees trouble ahead? I don't think so. The allure of heroism in unheroic times helps blind us to the misguided dangers of Gersonian Republicanism. And the availability of national political power -- of the tremendous force of the state unified with the market -- sits at the center of those dangers. There are other ways to 'include the whole country' in the American undertaking. Indeed, despite the worthiness of helping cope and cure, one of the best things about Americans has always been their ability to count themselves in.

Update: vast amounts of linkage on this subject by Joe Knippenberg.

Comments

[Matt S.]

The distinction you make between the libertarian tendency to move from political neutrality to moral neutrality, and the Catholic one to go from moral condemnation to political persecution, is quite right. I've long wondered if this is inevitable -- think of Tocqueville's line about the human mind not doing so well as holding to the moderate position between extremes.

For me, this means the genuine conservative will throw his weight to the side where it is most necessary. Given the absolutism of a not insignificant strain of Catholic thought (running, among other things, the President's Bioethics Council) I tack libertarian.

[James G]

good post
some of us libertarians aren't loopy. I've never gone from a political position of neutrality to a moral position of neutrality. They're separate questions. Just because you morally disapprove of something doesn't give you a right to ban it.
That no one seems to grasp this infuriates me. Want a better explanation of why this is so? read any Ayn Rand.

[heedless]

An ironist might note that the Catholics are too quick to render unto Ceasar, and the Libertarians unto G-d.

On a side note, one of my neighbors (in suburban Mass.) has a bumper sticker: "Be a local hero. Buy locally grown!" Recycling begins to seem Vergilian by comparison.