Vol. 2 No. 10 (February 2004)
The Newsletter of the Commonweal Institute
www.commonwealinstitute.org
"Administration,
n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks
and cuffs due to the premier or president."
-- Ambrose Bierce, from The Devil's Dictionary
Talking Points: Strong dollar, weak dollar
Wit and Wisdom: Going to Mars
Eye on the Rightr: The aesthetics of
conservatism
Quoted! Dick Armey on the Jewish mind
Featured Article: Audrey Schulman on
global warming
Endorsements: Anna Eshoo
Get Involved: Spread the word; become a
contributor
TALKING POINTS
The value of the U.S. dollar is a concept that can seem either too unimportant
or too complex to bother with -- except, of course, if you're an American
traveling abroad and thinking about exchange rates. But the remarkable
weaknesss of the dollar right now, in the context of the ongoing globalization
of finance, demands that we think seriously about the dollar's value on
international currency markets. In late 2000, the U.S. dollar would have
fetched €1.20 (Euros). Today it would buy you only about 80 Euro cents. That's
a drop of about one-third. What does this mean? How might this situation affect
ordinary Americans? Are there dangers here that need to be addressed sooner rather
than later?
A quick primer. The worldwide system of free-floating exchange rates resembles
the supply-and-demand equilibrium of the stock market. Instead of purchasing
shares in a company, however, governments and institutional currency
speculators purchase the currency of another country. The balances traded are
of a magnitude that they can finance national deficits and, in rare cases,
speculation can actually send countries into recession. As in the stock market,
faith in the positive prospects of a particular country will drive up its
currency relative to those of other countries. Conversely, doubts about the
health of a country's economic system are reflected in an unfavorable (or weak)
exchange rate.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both a strong and a weak dollar.
A strong dollar discourages rapid inflation and makes foreign products
(including travel) cheaper for American consumers. Additionally,
To return. The primary reason for the current weakness of the dollar is that
the Clinton administration's "Strong-Dollar Policy" has been quietly
dropped by the Bush team, under pressure from American exporters and in the
face of dismal employment statistics (see Edmund Andrews, "Strong Dollar, Weak
Dollar: Anyone Have a Scorecard?" New York Times,
But when we consider the economic details of this policy change, and seriously
weigh the risks involved, the conclusion that presents itself is that the
administration is serving the interests of business more than the needs of
ordinary Americans. Like excessive deficit spending, a dollar that is too
weak might buy some short-term benefits at the cost of long-term economic
weakness. Not only might it make croissants and Saabs harder to buy right
now -- it might be unaffordable itself as economic policy. That is because
currency value and federal budget deficits are closelyy connected.
Recall the Asian financial crisis of 1997. On the strength of its bally-hooed
reputation as one of the "Asian Tigers,"
It is hubris to suggest that this sort of economic catastrophe could not happen
in the
There is more peril in the event of a U.S. dollar meltdown. Because the federal
reserves of many other countries consist of dollars, the foundations of their
economies would also be shaken -- as if the gold in Fort Knox lost half of its
value in the space of a few days (see James Paul and Mariana Quenemoen,
";Fall of the Dollar," Global Policy Forum, August 2003). In
addition, the diplomatic position of the
The most sensible policy right now is a middle-of-the-road policy -- taking
the necessary steps to ensure that the dollar is neither too high, nor too low.
This means sharply reducing ourr budget and trade deficits as well as bringing
the American economy back to full steam. In addition, the
-- Jon Gray
Top Ten Reasons George W. Bush Wants To Put A Man On Mars
10. Dick Cheney needs a new
undisclosed location
9. It's part of his "No Planet Left Behind" initiative
8. Great deal on the off-season airfare right now at Expedia.com
7. Maybe we'll find some weapons of mass destruction there
6. We've run out of places on Earth to drill for oil
5. Hoping to get Mork's autograph
4. We cannot back down until the people of Mars hold free elections
3. Dude, free Mars bars
2. Why not? It's not like we have an enormous debt or failing economy
1. Pete Rose bet him we wouldn't do it
-- The Late Show With Dave Letterman,
QUOTED!
"I always see two Jewish communities in
EYE ON THE RIGHT
"Aesthetic" is probably not the first word that springs to mind in a
discussion of modern American conservatism. Dick Armey, aesthetic?
Deregulation, aesthetic? How can that be? Aren't conservatives unresponsive to
art, hostile to the artistic community?
Well . . . yes and no. Much of the confusion turns on the meaning of the word
"aesthetic." Aesthetic expression does include the fine arts (movies,
paintings, sculpture, etc.) but it also transcends them. In its fullest
sense, aesthetics refers to the use of coherent symbol systems to communicate
feelings, to affect perceptions at a subconscious level, to fly beneath the
radar of skepticism.
Political thinkers from Plato to Tolstoy to Karl Rove have recognized that a
political aesthetic serves the purpose of social cohesion. Cultural and
political unity cannot be achieved by force alone. Rather, an aesthetic system
devised and managed by political elites must seek to enlist citizens in a
common cause. The people must imagine themselves as part of a national
community (or of a group that substitutes itself for the national community),
and this imagining depends upon a shared set of evocative symbols.
In these terms, modern American conservatism owes much of its success to the
mastery of aesthetics. Indeed, the outrage of conservatives at various
forms of popular art (from "Murphy Brown" to Chris Ofili's "Holy
Virgin Mary") only betrays their understanding of how much the aesthetic
matters in contemporary life. The real dynamic, of course, is that
conservatives in the
The most basic form of political aesthetic (but for that reason perhaps the
most visceral) involves personal physical appearance. Naturally, in our
age of visual media, looks matter, and every political figure seeks to maximize
his or her own (telegenicity), while every political community seeks
representatives who have the raw goods, the telegenic presence, the sex appeal,
the smile. Compared to where they were a generation ago (Nixon, Schlafly,
Bork), the conservatives have come a long way (farther, one might hazard, than
the left), and their new generation of televised representatives -- Ralph Reed,
Ann Coulter, Tucker Carlson -- are almost universally good-looking. Innocuous,
you say? Maybe. But just remeember human history's catalogue of abuses that
people have justified through appeals to aesthetic bodily ideals.
A more complicated form of political aesthetic involves the fashioning of a
compelling public personality through the invocation of deeply rooted cultural
myths. From this perspective, the image of the cowboy, adapted to
remarkable effect by Ronald Reagan and his stage managers, has proved itself
much more potent than the image of, say, the peanut farmer -- a lesson not lost
on the current Presidential team. Achieving the cowboy aesthetic requires the
artful orchestration of thhe right symbols: the setting (Crawford Ranch,
old-fashioned tractor in the background); the attired (weathered boots, hefty
belt buckle); the bodily presence (confident stride, elbows outthrust); the
speech (a drawl, a predilection for the vernacular). The overall effect of the
aesthetic is to obscure reality (in particular, the fact that George Bush has
never had anything to do with ranching), in the creation of what, at its
logical extreme, amounts to a cult of personality.
More generally, the modern conservative aesthetic depends on the aggressive
appropriation of shared cultural symbols. The more all-embracing a
political aesthetic is, the greater its unifying social power. Hence the
ongoing campaign to associate everything from American flags to marriage
licenses with specifically conservative policies. The intent is to form a
homology in the public mind between conservatism and Americanism. The
aesthetic, in this case, works to recruit people to a political community by
asserting an identity between that political community and the nation as a
whole. Its power to do so is greater during times of war -- another lesson not
lost on the Right's image-making machine.
We might also credit today's conservative movement with an "aesthetics
of worldview." The signal feature of the American Right over the last
30 years is that it has achieved, with a few exceptions, a remarkable
consistency of ideology. The "unities" of art have been praised ever
since Aristotle named them, and the ideological unities of modern American
conservatism stand in sharp aesthetic contrast to the unseemly mess that we
usually find on the Left. This conservative coherence draws on the ideas pumped
out by a relatively small number of well-funded think tanks, and it
communicates itself to the public through the "echo chamber" of the
Right's formidable communications machine. As we contemplate the political
consciousness and behavior of Soccer Moms and Nascar Dads, we would do well not
to underestimate the psychological power that an aesthetic coherence of message
provides -- whatever that message might be.
The final major strategy of modern conservative aesthetics is the use of spectacle
and what Philip Rieff, as early as 1953, identified as the "emptying of
discursive values" (World Politics 5:4, p. 480), by which he
means a growing resistance to reasoned debate. In all fairness, spectacle runs
across the ideological spectrum, and it has been a feature of American politics
for a long, long time. The distinctive contribution of today's Right, however,
is a speciously "populist" anti-intellectualism that seeks to shield
political spectacle from public skepticism and scrutiny. Spirited debates that
are a sign of healthy political engagement are decried by today's conservatives
as "divisive" and "partisan." Two of the primary targets of
conservative rhetoric and policies are the schools and the media -- precisely
those institutions charged with discovering the truth, and with helping the
public discover it f! or themselves. In order to be effective, the aesthetics
of spectacle must short-circuit critical thinking and thereby limit people's
awareness of how images motivate them on emotional levels. The "discursive
values" Rieff describes, by contrast, celebrate the mindful analysis of
ideas, principles, events, decisions.
The conservative aesthetic, we might say, is a "faith-based"
aesthetic that depends upon an essentially religious epistemology. That is,
it asks us not to question, but to place our faith in the well-oiled machine
and the leaders whom it has produced. And just as we should be wary of the
aesthetization of politics, so should we be wary of the de-secularization of
politics. For then policy becomes doctrine; dissent becomes heresy; debate
becomes schism; conflicts become crusades; supporters become disciples; and
secular things become sacred -- and that is the true profanation.
The conservative aesthetic seems particularly effective when it comes to
mobilizing young people, who are generally less equipped to resist its lure.
That is why conservatives now seem more "cool" than liberals on
college campuses -- and what does the word "cool" express if not a
sense of aesthetic superiority? No accident, then, that the conseervative
movement is aggressively working the college scene through scholarship
foundations, campus organizations, student newspapers, lecture series, and
rival "academic" publishers.
In his landmark essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction," the German writer Walter Benjamin put his finger on
the dangerous relationship between politics and art. "All efforts to
render politics aesthetic," Benjamin wrote, "culminate in one thing:
war. War and war only can set a goal for mass movements on the largest scale
while respecting the traditional property system." In 2004, do we find
ourselves living out that grim prophecy?
No one can turn back the cultural clock, and it makes no sense to think that
politics in a media age will somehow wean itself from the aesthetic. As a
society, however, we can and must commit ourselves to two vitally important
goals. The first is a renewal of meaningful political participation, a renewal
that depends on recognizing the value of critical thinking, lively debate, and
spirited dissent. The second is a refusal to allow political aesthetics to
serve only political ends while blinding us to the larger responsibilites of
politics, however we might define them. Insofar as a political aesthetic
becomes an intellectual anaesthetic, to that degree have we compromised
our democratic principles and left ourselves vulnerable to the charms and the
chains of a crafty few.
FEATURED ARTICLE
The following is an excerpt from "Smoke Signals: Global-warming activists
can learn from the anti-smoking campaign," by Audrey Schulman.
"One of the strongest weapons in the tobacco war has been anti-smoking
commercials. The war against fossil fuels could employ the same technique.
Recently, a national survey conducted by the FrameWorks Institute, a
Washington, D.C., communications think tank, found that anti-global warming ads
can be highly effective if they feature a carefully chosen spokesperson
(business executives, religious leaders, and scientists were generally
well-received) who explains the problem with a simple analogy (such as a
blanket of carbon dioxide trapping heat above the Earth) and points out viable
solutions….
"Following the example of anti-tobacco activists and attorneys, several
lawyers are currently preparing class-action suits against companies that have
recklessly toyed with the climate. Perhaps a group of children will one day sue
ExxonMobil for spoiling the planet and compromising their futures. I can
imagine TVs around the country tuned in to see a small girl testifying in
court, perched on a phonebook. I can imagine the images in viewers' minds
shifting, changing what they feel when they turn the key in the ignition. I can
imagine state officials -- already addicted to cigarette taxes and settlements
-- leaning closer, smelling big money."
Click
here to read the whole article.
ENDORSEMENTS
"There is an urgent need today for a think tank to research and develop
ideas and facts to inform the public and assist officeholders. The Commonweal
Institute's work is urgently needed and I welcome what they will do and the
impact they will have during one of the most trying times in the life of our country."
-- Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, 14th CD-CA
GET INVOLVED
If you agree with Anna Eshoo (see above), there are a number of ways you can
help the Commonweal Institute achieve its goals.
Right now, as you read, you can simply forward the Uncommon Denominator
to friends and family who might be interested in learning about the Commonweal
Institute. Getting the word out is crucial.
You can also join our network of donors building the Commonweal
Institute. Your tax-deductible contribution is vital to making the Commonweal
Institute an effective organization. $100 would help so much! Even a
contribution of $10 or $20 will make a difference because there are so many
moderates and progressives. Click here to
contribute online.
© 2004 The Commonweal Institute
To subscribe to this free e-newsletter, send an email to: subscribe-news@commonwealinstitute.org.
If you no longer wish to receive the Uncommon Denominator, send an email
to: unsubscribe-news@commonwealinstitute.org.
Privacy Policy: The Commonweal Institute does not share subscriber email
addresses with any other organization or individuals.