Yesterday on CNN, Fareed Zakaria hosted a panel which discussed the tea party movement in the United States. On it, two liberal historians faced off a journalist from Wall Street Journal. One of the historians kept repeating that the movement had been fanned by Fox News and funded by a few angry billionaires. It’s funny how easily any trend we dislike turns into a shallow conspiracy. Milosevic once alleged that much of Albanian nationalism in Kosovo. And liberal Western intellectuals thought the same of Milosevic’s brand of Serb nationalism. Meanwhile, a New York Times article (“Voter Disgust Isn’t Only About Issues”) says independent voters participating in focus groups indicated they saw specific political and economic problems as part of a broader social malaise: “the larger breakdown of civil society – the disappearance of common courtesy, the relentless stream of data from digital devices,* the proliferation of lawsuits and the insidious influence of media on their children.” The Wall Street Journal woman retorted that the tea party in fact had a sensible economic agenda of shrinking a bloated government machine. The other historian lamented that all those stirrings around tea party populism were leaving aside a fundamental issue – the problem of social justice. Historically, governments have been charged with restraining the “innumerable vultures” John Stewart Mill thought could be found in any society. The tea party rank and file, though, feel quite happy to side with the sharks against the only force which could potentially control their predatory greed and “perpetual and restless desire of power after power.” Apparently, no amount of liberal hand-wringing can help the “government-is-the-problem” crowd start connecting the dots. Meanwhile, in Belgrade protesters tried to attack a gay rights procession and injured over 80 riot policemen. That outburst must have been another political conspiracy. You know, in the sense of politics is about “who gets what, when, how.” Except, it’s unclear what the rioters could possibly hope to “get” in this case. Such violence may raise a troubling question: can “civilized” political institutions function in a society which includes a critical mass of uncivilized young males? I guess most political scientists would answer in the affirmative. Some would discount the significance of political culture, arguing that political actors respond rationally to the incentive structures they face. Others would argue that an appropriate set of attitudes can develop as a result of learning within a democratic institutional framework. I do hope one of these theories is right.
* Ooops – the Google founders will probably be ticked that many Americans don’t seem to take their corporate slogan seriously
