DWill wrote:
I haven't read much of this book, but I suspected the piece by Ahmari would be objecting to "both-sidesism," since French seems to be holding pretty close to that kind of judicious view. I assumed Ahmari would be coming from the left, though, instead of the right, maybe because I myself feel that there isn't equilibrium left vs. right, as far as who's causing the most mischief. That feeling only intensified after the last election, the evaluation of which French wasn't able to make while he was writing.
I can only conclude from Ahmari's very hard line that for him, the political is, and must be, also personal. That hostile view of the side that doesn't agree with me is what I am trying to escape--though I admit it isn't always easy. Also I have to marvel at the profundity that intellectuals on the right have read into Donald Trump's political thought.
I see the dispute between Ahmari and French as a schism within the Republican party. However, French's support for pluralism makes him kind of an odd duck with today's Trumpians. If he were a governor or senator I'm pretty sure he'd be labeled a RINO.
I like the term, "both side-ism" though. If you examine the world's many religions, it may strike one as odd to consider that a person's religion is highly dependent on the region in which they are born. So, for example, if you are is born in Afghanistan, chances are you will be a Muslim. In Israel you will probably be a Judaist. In India, a Buddhist, etc. It might make you reconsider how "true" your religion really is and perhaps be more accepting of other people's beliefs.
Likewise, it's pretty easy to see that people are usually inclined to be progressive or conservative or somewhere in between. And, yet, everyone seems so sure they are right! And so French's "both-sideism" might be more realistic in that sense. Though French is conservative at heart, he eloquently argues that it is crucial to accommodate other people's diverse viewpoints. And several times he points to the wisdom of our founders, and particularly to James Madison's federalist paper #10.
French wrote:How then does a functioning nation manage the challenge of faction? Madison has the answer—pluralism. A broad diversity of interests and groups across a federal union helps prevent any one interest or group from attaining dangerous dominance.
As such Ahmari's take-no-prisoners approach is exactly the kind of factionalism that Madison warned against. Ahmari's re-ordering the public square to the "Highest Good" (capitalized) seems almost like a throwback to the divine rights of kings. Not sure if Ahmari truly wants a theocracy in America. But how else do we interpret "Highest Good?" If nothing else, we know that the religious among us will never agree on what that means. And secularists will want nothing to do with it at all. Injecting religious doctrine into politics will always be divisive.