Goodbye
I've been a liberal for twenty years, longer than I’ve been almost anything else. I don't know when I decided that's what I was, but I know that by the time Al Gore was pitching the lockbox, I'd chosen my side. Over all these years, my views have deepened with experience and hopefully some wisdom, but they're not really different than they were then. “Liberal” has always been a part of how I saw myself as a citizen.
Now, I'm ready to leave it behind. It’s not because my beliefs have fundamentally changed (they haven’t), or because liberals (or Democrats, or progressives, or the Left) have gotten too extreme. It’s because the idea of the left/right, liberal/conservative spectrum that we all live within now seems clearly destructive of the things I care about. I want out.
A few of my complaints with the spectrum: First, it absurdly flattens the universe of civic debate into a single dimension, as though an individual’s views on any issue should correlate with their views on every other. There is so much more texture than that, so many more opportunities for people to find common ground and work together, but the spectrum doesn’t allow it.
Second, it confuses extremism with conviction. If your particular set of positions lands you short of the ends of the spectrum, you are a moderate: apparently bland, inoffensive, and noncommittal, no matter the passion or urgency you feel. The way to show your commitment to your views is to follow them further to ends of the spectrum.
Third, it groups people based on means rather than ends. In theory, being on one side of the spectrum should mean broad agreement with others on that side as to the kind of country we should live in. In practice, I don’t really know what kind of country those further to the left end of the spectrum want, but I don’t think it’s what I want. We’re grouped together because we all generally believe in a role for the public sector in achieving progress, but that’s an unhelpful way to organize. Ends are a matter of vision and values, but means should be a matter of calculation. We should ally with those who share our ends, but the spectrum doesn’t sort us that way.
Fourth, because it is essentially binary—you can be at any point on the spectrum but you’re likely on one of its two sides—the spectrum encourages an us-versus-them mentality, where the motivations of those on the other side are always suspect, and ideas get coded as left-wing or right-wing. We want the approval of those on our side and, at our worst, revel in the disapproval of the other, and that shapes what we are willing to say and do and, in time, what we believe.
Like so many Americans, I’m alarmed by the polarization of our politics. Polarization doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ve become more extreme, but rather that we are more completely separated into our sides. Political orientation has become a more prominent part of identity for many of us, and it makes enemies of our neighbors on the other side. It’s hard to see a path forward on the most pressing problems when every election, and even every debate between individuals, is zero-sum; one side wins and the other loses, at least until the next contest, with the space for compromise and persuasion vanishing. Polarization has many causes, but one of them has to be the left/right divide that is so fully baked into our understanding of politics that we barely think to question it, but whose logic flattens our discourse, divides us into opposing teams, and pushes us apart.
I want something better, a political identity that can provide direction and purpose while leaving open the possibility of dialogue and shared action. I have an idea of what it is.
Hello
The political orientation I want doesn’t start with abstract rules about the role of government, the right level of taxation, or the writings of a dead philosopher or economist. It starts by asking: what should each one of us expect from life?
What makes a “good” life has been a subject of debate for millennia, consuming the attention of ordinary people and sages and occupying volumes of sacred texts, literature, philosophy, and so on. I don't want to dive into that, because I don’t have an answer—beyond what I’m sorting out for myself each day—and because I don’t need an answer. For my project, I’m going to look at a more intellectually modest idea that I’ll call a “full” life. As a shorthand, a full life is one you might look back on in old age with satisfaction, feeling you’d made something of the time you had. It doesn’t require wealth, or fame, or prestige, though those might be parts of it for some. Instead, it is rich with challenges and triumphs, with pain and adversity and the striving to overcome these. For most of us, it will revolve around the deep bonds we build with family and community; for many it will include faith. It is a life of dignity and meaning, of hope and joy.
That’s a very broad, loose definition, and it’s meant to be. There are more ways to live a full life than there are human beings, and I don’t impose my preferences on others. Whether you live on the Upper West Side, on a Texas ranch, or in a small Rust Belt town; whether you are a teacher, or a venture capitalist, or a cashier, or take care of family at home - there are limitless ways to live a full life, and I want all that diversity and the openness that allows it.
There are, however, more definite prerequisite conditions for a full life, among them opportunity and security, health and safety, and a range of civic and personal freedoms: freedom of thought, freedom of conscience, the freedom to pursue one’s ambitions and passions.
As basic as these may seem, they are out of reach for millions in America and billions around the world. Too many of us live lives scarred by deprivation and subsistence, by fear and violence, by oppression and abuse. People in these circumstances can of course still find joy and meaning, but they must find it buried under far too much pain. Historically, or at least for the last several centuries, this was the condition of most people throughout the world, whether due to material poverty, to tyranny, to repressive cultures, or to all of these and more. Today, in America, many of us will be so familiar with people living full lives that it will seem unremarkable; I see it in many of my family and friends, and am fortunate to be living it myself. That it has become commonplace is the single greatest triumph of our civilization; that it is still out of reach for many, including entire communities, is our greatest failure.
Government can’t give us a full life. Fulfillment and meaning come from what we do, what we believe, and the connections we make to our families and communities, all of which are beyond what a state can give us. But, government can work to secure the conditions that make a full life possible for every individual. In fact, I’d argue that this is the government’s primary, if not only, purpose.
How to accomplish that should be a practical, not an ideological, question. Sometimes it might mean more taxes or regulations, and sometimes dramatically less. Sometimes it could mean a direct government service, or it might mean a public/private partnership, or it might mean allowing markets to function. There is no policy that will be best in every context, but if we have a firmer grasp of what our goal is, we can afford to be open to where research, creative thinking, and debate about how to get there.
That, in broad strokes, is the political identity that I want. To summarize, it’s made of three beliefs: first, that every individual deserves a full life; second, that the purpose of government is to secure for everyone the conditions that make a full life possible; and third, that the right way to get there is whatever works best. Together, these can be a powerful lens for a citizen trying to make sense of politics.
If this seems familiar, or perhaps even blindingly obvious, that’s great. I have no interest in originality here, and am borrowing freely from an existing American tradition. These ideas echo the Declaration of Independence’s “pursuit of happiness,” parts of the Bill of Rights, and Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms (or Second Bill of Rights). They're there in familiar ideas like the middle class, the safety net, and of course the American Dream. None of these is exactly or completely what I'm describing, but all the pieces are there. Most things worth saying aren’t new; they’re familiar truths that we need to hear again.
It’s still a rough idea, a sketch in pencil. As I’ve thought about it the last few months, I’ve come to believe that it is rich enough to explore and refine, and that’s what I want to do here, with (hopefully) regular, and shorter, updates. I’ll tighten the explanation, give it an evocative name, make it real with some narrative examples, etc. If the exercise helps me round out the idea for myself, the effort will be worth it; if anyone else finds value in it, all the better. My dream is that an idea like this becomes a part of the way that people who see themselves as trapped on one side or the other of a left/right war start to see politics, and that it opens space for debate and shared action that is all but gone today. If you agree with the ideas above, I don’t care where you sit on that terrible spectrum or whom you voted for in the last election; we have a place to start a discussion. We need to find a path out of polarization to get back to solving problems for real people—to help more people live full lives—and perhaps there’s something here that can help.
If this project is interesting to you, please subscribe and share, but more importantly please send ideas and questions. Tell me why I’m wrong, or simplistic, or derivative, and above all tell me how you’d do it better.
Thanks.
Nick