Harvey Mansfield recently wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, and recorded a podcast at a website called The Dispatch. Now 91, Mansfield is as sharp as ever.
Mansfield says that the left-wing radicals of the late 1960s were opposed to the Democratic Party establishment, opposed to the Johnson Administration, opposed to traditional liberals. This was evident at the 1968 Democratic Convention, when radicals clashed with the Party establishment.
A mass movement, such as the French Revolution or the Chinese Cultural Revolution, tends to become more and more radical. On the American Left, this radicalism was apparent in the late 1960s. This left-wing radicalism returned with fresh fury after the GeorgeFloyd incident, when it took the form of rioting, breaking statues, “anti-racism,” and more extreme affirmative action — the so-called Woke movement.
Some people think that the Woke movement will burn itself out, that it will provoke a reaction, a return to sanity and moderation. But I don’t think we’ve seen the last of left-wing radicalism, it will eventually return, and take more extreme forms.
Mansfield notes that Steven Pinker and a couple hundred other Harvard professors have formed a group called “The Council for Academic Freedom At Harvard.” This group aims to keep the Woke movement within the bounds of moderation; this group, though made up largely of liberals, realizes that liberalism can be taken to excess. Mansfield himself is a member of this group.
It could be argued that the mob took over the Democratic Party in the late 1960s, and the mob took over the Republican Party around 2008, with Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. When the mob took over the Democratic Party, the neocons left the Democratic Party and moved to the right. Now many neocons are more concerned about the Republican mob than the Democratic mob, so they’re leaving the Republican Party, and returning to their old home on the left.
Trump represents the triumph of the mob over the establishment. Trump has no moral or intellectual virtues, and doesn’t pretend to have any, or aspire to have any. Is this part of his appeal?
Mansfield says, “Morality has to do with admiration as well as compassion.” Trump lacks both admiration and compassion. It may seem odd that a political leader would lack admiration and compassion, but if we view Trump as a businessman, then it’s not odd; business leaders aren’t known for admiration or compassion.
Politics involves sacrifice — pro patria mori, dying for one’s country. Business isn’t about sacrifice, so Trump can’t understand pro patria mori; in Trump’s view, if you die for your country, you’re a fool, a loser, a sucker.
Mansfield calls Trump “a contemptible figure, an odious personality, and a very deleterious influence in American politics.” Mansfield says that the Constitution is “our most valuable common possession,” but Trump cares nothing about it, knows nothing about it. Mansfield says he might vote for Trump anyway (as he did in 2020), since the Democrats may well be worse.
Montesquieu said that the principle of a republic was virtue, the principle of a monarchy was honor, and the principle of a despotism was fear. Can a republic survive without virtue? Can a republic survive with a President who has neither admiration nor compassion, who looks down at sacrifice, who has no regard for virtue?
True, Trump’s decisions regarding war and peace were sensible, and his SupremeCourt appointments were sensible, but his loose talk made Democrats think that he wanted to establish a dictatorship, his loose talk prompted Democrats to initiate wild policies such as an open border. Therefore, Trump is partly responsible for those wild policies.
At this point, it would make sense to vote for Trump rather than Biden, since Trump’s policies are less crazy. Biden’s open border is national suicide. The danger that Trump poses is largely imaginary, the danger that Biden poses is real. Trump isn’t focused on establishing a dictatorship, he’s focused on golf games and cocktail parties. But Trump is responsible for lowering the tone of political discourse, for increasing polarization, and for prompting Democrats to embrace extreme policies, suicidal policies.
Nietzsche didn’t distinguish between democracy and mob rule. He would probably say that democracy is essentially mob rule, and will eventually show its true colors. For a time, you can restrain the mob with checks-and-balances, separation-of-powers, federalism, etc., but eventually the mob will break through these barriers.
People will interpret the Constitution to mean whatever they want it to mean. If they want a right of privacy, they’ll stick it in the Constitution, without bothering to go through the hassle of amending the Constitution. If they want another blue state, they’ll make Washington DC a state, though the Constitution says it’s not a state. Does the filibuster stand in our way? Get rid of it.
In the long run, you can’t restrain the mob. It will take over the party of “progress” (the Democratic Party), and then it will take over the party of tradition (the Republican Party). Power gradually flows to the mob, as water flows downhill. The mob becomes less respectful, and more audacious.
We’ve gradually lost the ideal of the gentleman, the ideals of self-improvement and self-culture. We’ve gradually lost our cohesion as a society, our feeling that we’re all Americans, our pride in the country’s history. Trump is part of the problem, but these trends are bigger than one individual; Trump is a symptom rather than a cause.
The Democrats have thrown open the southern border, so millions of illegal immigrants can pour in. This video from 2015 suggests that, even before Trump became President, Biden wanted to use mass immigration to make whites a minority, and strengthen the Democratic Party. Five years from now, Democrats can say, “Our mob is bigger than your mob. We’ll beat you at the polls. And if it comes to street fighting, we’ll beat you there, too.”
Democrats will control the country, but what sort of country will it be? Democrats seem eager to destroy the country so Trump can’t destroy the country, eager to undermine democracy so Trump can’t undermine democracy.
Is there any way to restore a civilization that has reached this point? Is there any way to make water flow uphill? Perhaps we should adopt the motto of Alcoholics Anonymous, “One Day At A Time,” perhaps we should try to remain civilized for one day. Can we get through one day with no Congressman wearing a hoodie, or using profanity, or engaging in fisticuffs?
Coleridge thinks that, when a poet writes about nature, he should have some regard for truth, he shouldn’t modify nature out of carelessness and ignorance. Coleridge criticizes Pope’s lines about the moon:
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole1
These lines convey a false impression of the night sky, perhaps because Pope didn’t care about nature, perhaps because his chief goal was making a rhyme. Planets don’t move around the moon, and the North Pole isn’t crowded with stars.
Coleridge says that Pope corrupted public taste with his “pseudo-poetic diction,” especially in his popular translation of Homer. Pope used words to create a vague impression of poetry, not a true description, not genuine imagination.
Of course, truth-to-nature doesn’t, by itself, create good poetry, it needs to be combined with imagination. Coleridge says that imagination can make One of Many, or reduce a multitude into “unity of effect,” or use “strong passion” to bring many incidents into one controlling theme/feeling/tone, or make a succession of events seem instantaneous. Coleridge quotes Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, to show how The Bard makes a succession of events seem instantaneous:
With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace
Of those fair arms, that held him to her heart,
And homeward through the dark lawns runs apace:
Look how a bright star shooteth from the sky!
So glides he through the night from Venus’ eye.
In these lines, Shakespeare is using both truth and imagination; the truth of nature (the speed of a shooting star) is modifying or coloring the description of the two lovers. According to Coleridge, Shakespeare is making a series of events seem simultaneous, he’s making One of Many (in a chronological sense). Another way to interpret this passage is to say that Shakespeare is depicting Adonis as youthful, energetic, athletic; Adonis is so full of life that he moves like a shooting star. One could argue that all art is life-enhancing, all art makes us feel more alive.
As Coleridge respects truth-to-nature, and criticizes Pope for being false to nature, so Ruskin respects truth-to-nature in painting, and criticizes the Italian Landscape painters for being false to nature. For example, Ruskin criticizes Gaspard Dughet for depicting trees as if they were carrots. Gaspard’s Ariccia (below) depicts a tree whose trunk and branches “taper violently.”2
Ruskin also criticizes Salvator Rosa for painting rocks as if they were drapery, ribbons, or waves — “not only unlike, but directly contrary to the forms which nature has impressed on rocks.” Ruskin says that, when the Old Masters paint rocks, “the strokes of the brush are not used to explain or express a form known or conceived, but are dashed and daubed about without any aim beyond the covering of the canvas. ‘A rock,’ the Old Masters appear to say to themselves, ‘is a great irregular, formless, characterless lump.’” Ruskin criticized the Old Masters and the Italian Landscape painters, and championed modern painters, especially Turner, who were more true-to-nature, more respectful of nature, more in awe of nature.
What Ruskin says about painters like Salvator and Gaspard is similar to what Coleridge says about Pope. Ruskin says, “The old landscape painters.... had neither love of nature, nor feeling of her beauty; they looked for her coldest and most commonplace effects.” Shakespeare appreciated nature; his image of a shooting star certainly isn’t one of nature’s “coldest and most commonplace effects.”
Like Coleridge, Ruskin knew that it’s not enough for an artist to be true-to-nature. Ruskin championed the English painter Turner, who often modified nature to create an effect. Turner’s best work, in Ruskin’s view, was The Slave Ship, which deals with “the most sublime of subjects and impressions... the power, majesty, and deathfulness of the open, deep, illimitable sea.”
The Slave Ship (1840), J. M. W. Turner
One may question Ruskin’s interpretation of the painting (does it depict the “deathfulness” of the sea or of man?) but it’s clear that Turner isn’t satisfied with truth to nature. Likewise, when Shakespeare compares a young lover to a shooting star, he’s not aiming merely at truth to nature, he’s modifying nature with art, with imagination.
Ruskin was a leading art critic, as Coleridge was a leading literary critic. The message of Ruskin and Coleridge was, “Go ahead, ye artists! modify nature, but modify her out of passion and enthusiasm, not out of carelessness and ignorance.”
© L. James Hammond 2024
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| Footnotes | |
| 1. | From Pope’s translation of the Iliad, Book VIII, around line 691. Coleridge’s remarks are from Biographia Literaria, Ch. 2, footnote back |
| 2. | Ruskin, Modern Painters, Vol. I back |