The Progressives

A liberal humanist critique of Obama's Life of Julia.

A perennial question that divides the political left and right is this: what sort of beings are we? Do we have an immutable, perhaps transcendent, nature that will surrender everything utopia for autonomy, agency, and freedom (Elvis)? Or is there no inherent nature, and humans are just socially constructed, plastic, seeking nothing but safety and a reliable sense of well-being (Julia)? Political Science, Psychology, and Anthropology cannot answer that question, and the sciences can only measure what is measurable. The liberal arts and humanities, however, insist that we are like Elvis, and that those who trade liberty for comfort always live to regret it.

I grew up in liberal Marin County. The reason the public schools were good isn't because of Federal Grants. They are good because the citizens of Marin pass a parcel tax and locally tax their own property more to help the school system. It obviously helps that the community is well to do and the parents insist on good public schools, etc, but it has very little to do with Federal money. Some other school districts may be different, but my basic understand of education is that it is state-funded and run.

I went to college and grad school. Yes, Federal loans were available and yes, they also inflated the tuition costs. I basically consider this a wash. In grad school, I received grants and stipends. I think that money came from private people donating back to the cinema school. That was a lot more valuable in dollar terms than loans. 

In school, I got mandatory health care by paying for it through the school. Afterwards, I got health care from my employers, not the federal government. There was a brief period where I paid for it myself unhappily.

When I'm old, I'll get Medicare and Social Security. But along the way, I get money taken out of every single paycheck on the way there to pay for these things, so it's not like President Obama is exactly doing me a grand favor by taking money I earn and then giving it back to me without any interest after 35 plus years. I participate because I have to and view it as sort of a social insurance, but it isn't exactly some great deal. For alternative examples, I pay for car insurance and when I've gotten in an accident, it has paid for it. This system works without the Federal Government.

I have yet to get any sort of Federal backed small business loan or mortgage.

I do appreciate the FDIC insurance on my bank account.

I appreciate the military and the FBI keeping Al Queda off my back.

I appreciate cops keeping the streets safe.

I appreciate roads and bridges being free, but it isn't as if we couldn't figure out how to build roads and bridges like they are some sort of invention of liberal governance.

In any case, I suppose I'm bringing up the Life of Greg to contrast with the life of Julia only because the life of Greg happens to be real and the Life of Julia some theoretical construction of how Obama's policies are helping people. The liberal retort will be something along the lines of - well there are other people not like Greg who need help from these Federal programs. I'm sure there are. I'd like to hear their stories. In fact, I'd much prefer those stories to some fake progressive cardboard cut out figure.

A RANDOM ASIDE: Two major goals of progressives are a return to more financial equality and better public education. I would like to point out how women entering the workforce in large numbers have the unintended side effect of hurting both of these goals. One, women are no longer financially dependent on men and therefore the divorce rate is much higher. This is good for women's rights, but arguably bad for the well being of children. One can go into the nuances of the debate, but it is a pretty safe thing to say, women getting equality opportunities to men has coincided with higher divorce rates. I imagine this will probably be true throughout countries all around the world. It probably hurts the financial prospects of children as well, as splitting up all the assets make the kids worse off in a financial way and this may hurt their opportunities in addition to any psychological or emotional problems associated with a split home (some kids are barely effected, while others are, I imagine).

The second reality is that American public school education used to be better because overqualified women became teachers. Is this unfair? I suppose it is unfair for the women to have less opportunities, but the beneficiaries of this unfairness were kids getting a better education from top-minded women, who now are more likely to go into more lucrative or rewarding fields of work. This isn't suggesting that I favor a policy of making women have fewer opportunities, merely pointing out that our educational system was benefitting from it.