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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| When Government Jumps the Shark |
| 2011-06-14 |
| By Walter Russell Mead Jumping the shark, as many readers know, is an expression from the wonderful world of TV. When the original premise of a show has gone stale, producers try to recapture audience interest by putting familiar characters in outlandish settings where strange things happen to them — notoriously, when Fonzie literally jumped over a shark as Happy Days moved into its sunset years. When something jumps the shark, the death spiral has become irretrievable; the show has nowhere to go but down. The progressive ideal of the last 100 years is reaching that point. In its day the progressive ideal was a revolutionary and even a noble one. A bureaucratic and professional elite would mediate social conflict between rich and poor, improving the lives of the poor while engineering the best possible administrative solutions to pressing social problems. Keynesian macroeconomic management would ensure lasting prosperity; progressive taxation would spread the benefits of prosperity as widely as possible. Levels of education would rise as more and more Americans spent more and more years in school. Progressivism held out the hope that capitalism, democracy and history itself could all be tamed by competent professional management. Victorian capitalism had been brutal, disruptive, competitive. Society became more unequal even as living standards gradually rose. Democracy was irresistible, but the masses were uneducated. The modern progressive era was born at times of great violence and upheaval. World War One, the Russian Revolution, the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, World War Two, the invention of nuclear weapons and the start of the Cold War: it was against this background that progressives sought to turn modern life into something safe and tame. I cannot blame four generations of progressive intellectuals for trying to make life a little less brutal and unpredictable, nor should we overlook the successes they had. Nevertheless, the Fonz has left the building; the progressive paradigm today can no longer serve as the basis for sound national policy. RTWT |
| Posted by:eltoroverde |
| #3 I think it was Heinlein who wrote: "You can lead a fool to knowledge, but you can't make him think." |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2011-06-14 20:47 |
| #2 All those college kids who voted for Obama in 2008 are cursing him today as they enter the job market. Not all. Come on, there are still legions of Koolaid drinkers out there. The whole problem with the 'view' is that someone is entitled to middle class standards without putting in the middle class work to attain it. Classical liberalism/progressivism died in the late 70s early 80s when nearly all the social impediments were removed that had held groups back. Then it was discovered the old adage "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" still applied. That when they went full socialist throwing out equal opportunity for equal outcome. And socialism is predicated upon coveting, stealing and bearing false witness. Not principles to build and sustain an advanced civilization upon. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2011-06-14 18:30 |
| #1 When something jumps the shark, the death spiral has become irretrievable; the show has nowhere to go but down. The progressive ideal of the last 100 years is reaching that point. Actually, Progressivism jumped the shark with the Great Society during the 60's. Ever since then, the left has experienced increasing anger as rigor mortis sets in. I suspect every generation needs to experience a progressive regime so that they are cured of all illusions about the benefits of Socialism. All those college kids who voted for Obama in 2008 are cursing him today as they enter the job market. I bet those kids never vote for a Socialist again. Al |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2011-06-14 18:21 |