I'm a first principles kinda guy.  I think that's a product of teaching in the liberal arts all my adult life.  I think, though I cannot prove, certainly, that there's an intuitive attraction to first principles in the general body politic, apart from theorists or policy experts.  This explains the response to a series of words in the lexicon of American civic speech:  fairness, equality, freedom, democracy, and the like. 

Where we fail, (MHO only) is we simply allow these words to resonate without drawing the implications out of them in a systematic and thorough way.  We assume that the connection between first principles and action in the public sphere (for that matter, action in the private sphere) is self-evident and doesn't have to be made explicit.  The result is that we leave these words up for grabs, and conservatives kidnap them and bend their meaning to their own ends. 

Civic education (education for and about the common good) is vital and the left has to start paying attention to it.  I hope a discussion gets started on this theme here.  If Obama is the "real deal" then taking us back to the basics of our common communal beliefs is a pretty good way to start, I think.  The proof of the pudding (sorry about the cliché) will be whether he can make the connection between core values and means to furthering them explicit and irrefutable.  That will take time, but there is time to be taken.  And iteration and reiteration of those common values will have to be continuous, serious, and explicit. Through them, public trust is established. Obama has made a good start, I think, which is why so many like him almost intuitively.

One of the reasons that Klein and those of his ilk say what they say is that they have no deep connection to principle themselves.  They have no deep connection to anything, methinks.  There was an era when journalists were public scholars first and journalists second.  I think of persons like Walter Lippmann or E. B. White, James Reston, or Richard Strout, the first T. R. B. at The New Republic.  Klein is no worthy successor of any of these or many others whose names might come to mind.  He knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

aMike

In the context within which Obama is speaking they represent a series of contestable claims about the nature of humanity and how America should engage the world as a result.

What in God's name is that supposed to mean? You too don't know what you're talking about.

I'd like to see the slightest evidence that these "general principles", as uttered by a politician, can't, and won't, when the occasion is right, be twisted to mean anything the politician conveniently wants them to mean.

You want a straight answer out of a politician? Get some concrete commitments out of him. If you think anything else short of that can't be interpreted any old way he happens to want, you are an utter fool.

If there's anything about Obama I dislike most, its his pretense that he's really saying something when he's so obviously refusing to say anything that represents a real commitment to one action rather than another.

Politicians are always the slipperiest beasts to occupy our planet, and what do you choose to do? Find a way of praising the nasty slickness.

It does largely come down to your level of cynicism. I'm willing to believe that Obama uses words like humility and evil with the weight that Niebuhr gives them, the weight of religious belief. As a result, where you see generalities I see meaning.

With a quote like this Obama channeling Niebuhr to implicitly argue that though the neoconservative project in Iraq was flawed because it was based on arrogance and misunderstanding, we should not react by dropping altogether that American power can do good in the world. It's a fairly typical liberal internationalist belief (see Beinart's "The Good Fight"-- and please don't just dump on his argument without reading it because he was so wrong and obnoxious about Iraq).

Your argument, though, like Klein's depends on how you interpret Obama and whether you see him as I do as a promising leader with a dazzling intellect or as a vague rhetorician. Our disagreement proves Brooks' point.

My take on the Brooks column was different. Probably because, admittedly, I'm not at all familiar with Niebuhr, and I focused more Brooks' form, rather than content. (Actually, that's what I always do...Brooks bugs me so...) But this line:

My first impression was that for a guy who’s spent the last few months fund-raising, and who was walking off the Senate floor as he spoke, that’s a pretty good off-the-cuff summary of Niebuhr’s “The Irony of American History.

OK, it's surprising to Brooks that Obama could whip up an answer like that? That's because -- Obama is smart.

It seemed to me that Brooks was playing some kind of "gotcha" with Obama. He'd pull out some at least relatively obscure name and was suprised that Obama knew more about him than probably Brooks.

And that last line, about "profound or vacuous." That's the kind of slight-of-hand insult we see in almost all of Brooks's columns, certainly when insulting talking about a Democrat.

Although I'm glad he did leave that last line up in the air. Because if David Brooks likes Barack Obama, surely that's a bad sign for 2008.

I would also add that this critique of Obama, that he's meta, that he talks about doing things instead of just doing things, is not new.

Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code. -- SCOTUS that was...

My Bad...and a deep apology to Ezra Klein.

I was rushing to get the comment finished before my ride left and simply read the wrong Klein.  I'm so used to seeing Joe Klein get it wrong I mentally substituted Joe for Ezra as written.  Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa.  I'm off to go stand in the corner and repeat "read more carefully, and you'll make less of a fool of yourself" 100 times.

aMike

Taking Brooks seriously is the first mistake.
I know he's published in the NYT so he has cultural capital, but discussing Brooks as though he was a serious intellect, rather than a shill and comedy act, only helps perpetuate the absurdity.

The same mistake was made with Saffire as he cashed his last bit of credibility shilling for WMD.

Before Obama ever answered is was predetermined that Brooks would spin it as revealing a deep flaw. The whole Niebuhr question was an opening for Brooks to launch into a no-fact, spin friendly zone.

Obama's philosophical and moral bent will serve him well, providing he speaks to audiences who are at least moderate and reasonable enough to listen.

Giving Brooks an interview and thereby granting him interpretive authority, was a mistake.

So any leadership is vanity?

Any concept of good or evil, right and wrong, in the context of the human experience, is entirely false?

I don't agree things are quite so simple.

Here's another principle:

Be extremely wary of Brooks as his sole function is floating trial balloons for Republican talking points to the MSM and moderates.

Brooks is floating the "vague policy" attack meme straight outta RNC talking points. If successful, the MSM echo chamber will never stop it, no matter what.

We're not going to fall for this again are we?

There go the Republican talking points and main line of attack, which will also be bolstered by various left wing groups and special interests, which the MSM will consider a "balanced" debate and use to perpetuate the Republican meme.

Here comes the swift boaters... Gore invented the internet... S.O.S.

It's not worth my time to argue with someone who thinks "good" is a synonym of "right" or that "evil" is a synonym of "wrong."  People that unsophisticated usually turn out be hidebound fundamentalists.

Who cares what Brooks thinks or says about any demcrat. He is a partisan parrot on the payroll of the Bush government who will pimp the party line LIES without due diligence or the slightest semblance journalistic ethic or effort, and dismiss or slime democrats no matter what they say or do.

What do the parrot Brooks think about Cheney, who is either a pathological liar, and dimwit who has never been right on any single issue, or hollow promise in the last 20 years, - or he is Azmodeus incarnate.

Ignore the partisan parrot on the payroll of the fascist warmongers, profiteers, and pathological liars in the Bush government.

Obama is giving voice to the voiceless and his supposed lack of experience is an advantage since he is not tainted by the foul odious stench of the politerati of Washigton, who know, and care nothing about the concerns or best interests of the American people.

It seems to me that there are hardly any real internationalists left in American politics, liberal or otherwise. Simply "working with our allies" to achieve national ends and interests is not internationalism. Nor is a general concern for what happens "internationally", and a desire to improve the world through heroic national exertions, or adventitious cooperation with transient coalitions of the willing. The Trojan War, for example, at least as portrayed by Homer, is an excellent example of "international" cooperation. But it is hardly an exemplar of internationalism in action.

Most liberals now seem to be romantic nationalists, whose conception of the international realm is more in harmony with the spirit of Arthurian legends of knights errant and lordly fellowships of the virtuous, and other medieval romances and epics. The more modern spirit of internationalism escapes them, and most will have little to do with ideals of global commonwealth or federation that animated their internationalist forbears.

There are different forms of internationalism, but one classic version is articulated in the UN Charter. Many American liberals now explicitly reject key elements of that charter, especially the notion of the "sovereign equality of states" which is the basis for much of the rest.

Internationalism in all forms seeks the attenuation of nationalism and state sovereignty under some sort of international order. In the liberal form it endorses the establishment and maintenance of an international rule of law, and of potent international institutions to give force to that rule of law.

Find me some prominent contemporary American liberals who have waxed rhapsodic about international law, and the solemnity of our commitments to it. Most of what I hear from liberals these days is vague and halfhearted support for international law, coupled with apologetic embarrassment about even bringing up the subject. And lots of liberals seem extremely comfortable with chauvinistic nationalism - i.e. "exceptionalism".

In the case of Beinart, what sticks most in my mind is that following the 2004 election, he wrote an article effectively declaring war on the left, and advocating a sort of red purge of the kind that occured in the US at the dawn of the Cold War. Since I consider myself to be on the left, and Beinart has declared war on me, then I regard him as my enemy.

I believe he referred to it as "blow," not coke.

Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code. -- SCOTUS that was...

Right and good, and wrong and evil, are commonly used as synonyms, even by the sophisticated. What are the distinctions you feel should be made? Are you rejecting the concept that good and evil are absolutes that exist apart from people? Do you believe that right and wrong should be judged by the positive or negative effects of a person's actions? Are you saying there absolutely no absolutes?
I realize that these issues can and have filled whole libraries without any real resolution (An awful lot of trees have died in vain.) But I would be interested in the thinking behind the distinctions you are drawing.
P.S. The opposite of humility is Pride, but vanity usually is a component of Pride.

Klein: "Brooks's concrete insight here is a good one."

Brooks:

In other words, [Obama] has a tendency to go big and offer himself up as Bromide Obama, filled with grand but usually evasive eloquence about bringing people together and showing respect. Then, in a blink, he can go small and concrete, and sound more like a community organizer than George F. Kennan. When I asked him to articulate the central doctrine of his foreign policy, he said, 'The single objective of keeping America safe is best served when people in other nations are secure and feel invested.' That's either profound or vacuous, depending on your point of view.

First principles, Brooks is to concrete as concrete is to dense. Is Brooks really complaining about political transubstantiation or a politician routinely tailoring the skin of his message without changing its core? Obama addressing the Chicago Council on Global Affairs:

In today’s globalized world, the security of the American people is inextricably linked to the security of all people. When narco-trafficking and corruption threaten democracy in Latin America, it’s America’s problem too. When poor villagers in Indonesia have no choice but to send chickens to market infected with avian flu, it cannot be seen as a distant concern. When religious schools in Pakistan teach hatred to young children, our children are threatened as well. Whether it’s global terrorism or pandemic disease, dramatic climate change or the proliferation of weapons of mass annihilation, the threats we face at the dawn of the 21st century can no longer be contained by borders and boundaries. The horrific attacks on that clear September day awakened us to this new reality. (continued)

Same message, more context; neither vacuous nor profound. That Brooks couldn't be bothered to Google or research accordingly suggests more about Brooks than it does Obama, i.e., sloth, incuriosity, casuistry, a falsely dichotomous worldview shared with his neo-Manichean Messiah-in-chief.

Ditto Klein:

Brooks's concrete insight here is a good one: As my colleague Garance has noted, Obama has a tendency to lapse into "meta" campaigning, wherein he spends his time on the podium talking about the experience of campaigning and the practice of politics rather than whatever his ostensible subject is... Why the whole article is nevertheless framed around Obama's understanding of Niehbur's thought -- which, in this context, consists of banalities like "there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction." -- baffles me. Reinhold Niebuhr runs a close second to Harry Truman among Dead White Guys Who Are Constantly, Vaguely, and Uselessly Invoked By Those Seeking To Look Serious On National Security, and so his appearance here is hardly unexpected.

Is Klein "baffled" that Brooks turned an interview on foreign aid programs in Africa into a passing tête-à-tête on Niebuhr? Or is Klein merely campaigning for the "uber" lead among Live White Hillary Guys Who Constantly, Carelessly Misread And Thus Inevitably, Risibly Succeed In Appearing Foolish?

Brooks: "Yesterday evening I was interviewing Barack Obama and we were talking about effective foreign aid programs in Africa. Out of the blue I asked, 'Have you ever read Reinhold Niebuhr?'."

Otherwise yes, there is a nexus between Obama and Niebuhr. No, it doesn't start with "national security" or Those Seeking to Look Serious On The Same. Yes, there are better authorites to consult on the substance (or illusion) of Barack, including Obama himself. No, Brooks' vacuity and Klein's memecry are hardly authoritative.

One wonders why he would grant an interview. It's not like he needs the publicity. Maybe Brooks seduced him with his obsequious, fawning praise.

Yep, I completely agree.

Brooks is polite, but really slimy and transparent, a real weasel. Just like the people he associates with such as Kristol for example.

There are honest conservatives who I may disagree with, but at least they're sincere. Brooks is a bullshitter to the bone.

You can see his position shifting sometimes in mid sentence to try and insinuate as much as possible along the lines of RNC talking points, while leaving himself a thin rational out/denial if he's challenged. It's clear he knows when he's lying and just doesn't care.

btw, Brooks looked rather timid on the News Hour today, laying back a bit. That's his equivalent of "spidey sense" only more like "weasel sense." Other super powers on the NYT editorial staff include "the mustache!" and of course the token heroine "super fluffer."

That's the Brooks MO when his credibility is so far down the toilet, he fears dropping another turd, lest he be sucked into the septic tank beside Saffire, Kristol and such.

But soon enough, like a backed up toilet he'll soon overflow with Rt Wing talking points hollered up the pipe.

there's an intuitive attraction to first principles in the general body politic, apart from theorists or policy experts. This explains the response to a series of words in the lexicon of American civic speech: fairness, equality, freedom, democracy, and the like.

Those are innate concepts, evolved and shared by primate relatives. Read "Primates and Philosophers, How Morality Evolved" Frans de Waal 2006.

The proof of the pudding will be whether he can make the connection between core values and means to furthering them explicit and irrefutable..

Well, first off his personal background does matter very much and Republicans shouldn't be allowed to diminish or trivialize that, rather hypocritically. Whenever I see MSM pundits doing that, I immediately know they're in the beltway chattering class.

Secondly, I'm satisfied with his level of policy detail. He's outlined major goals and I like them. He's clearly a consensus builder and very intelligent and capable. If he were elected tomorrow I'd give him a better shot at accomplishing his stated goals than many pols who've already painted themselves into corners and made lots of burdensome allies and enemies.

He'll of course continue fleshing things out, but a central principle I see him upholding is to be a consensus builder. And that isn't done by dictating policy details before even getting people to the table.

Right now politics are highly corrosive with special interests fighting over details and mostly ignoring the big picture. Each interest wants candidates to toe their line or be stoned to death. The MSM loves that because it generates their kind of equivocal scandal, churn and fluff. Also, the Rt Wing loves it because their base is more concentrated and vertical, from evangelical churches to corporate lobbies.

Obama will need to avoid painting himself into a corner to please special interests, trying to be all things to all people, and the liberal side of the public will have to realize circular firing squads are only killing our own.

The argument Brooks is making, that Obama is too vague, will be the central RNC attack. Count on it. If people fall for it, it will be repeated in the MSM to the point where Obama could lay out policy details on the sub-atomic level, and it wouldn't stop the meme.

Don't fall for it!!!!

btw, in context of this thread and what Ellen seems to be saying, I used vanity as an antonym with negative connotations, for the positive attributes of humility. (which you seemed to get as did others, and I thought was obvious. But again, I'll have to adjust my pitch to a smaller strike zone.)

If the results are "good" it is probably "right" to achieve them (after all, we do live in a very utilitarian society). Pointing out the defects of means-ends thinking will only dig you in deep with this crowd.

This crowd? Alas, we can't all aspire to be middle-brow intellectuals and under-appreciated bureaucrats.

Anyways, that's a rather meaningless and sophistic distinction especially in lieu of a tangible person in politics, not a wholly abstract philosophical debate.

Can you cite an example of means without ends or ends without means?

Since we're discussing this in context of politics, philosophy, and other human endeavors, is it not correct to consider from that perspective good and right are relative equivalents, as are wrong and evil?

Is there an absolute and omnipotent distinction you can reveal for us?

How about an abstract philosophical one with practical significance and meaning to the discussion?

I assume we are talking Reinhold, although there are other Niebuhrs.

..... Ah, on second thought, never mind.

That's odd, I see my name up-thread, and making no reference to you. And yet when you join the thread and I respond, I'm "harassing" you. Interesting.

Regardless, since you raised the issue of "defects of means-ends thinking" in "this crowd" I'm curious to hear your thought. I'm familiar with the subject, so feel free to cut loose.

Here's a question, do you have any example of a value judgment where means and ends are decoupled? Is there any example you can give where the means aren't valued depending on the ends? And I'm not talking about a specific end, but all ends cumulatively as a product of the means in question.

Let me know when you've got one.

I think part of the problem here is not so much that the concepts of international cooperation to achieve national aims and internationalism are elided, but also that liberalism is conflated with leftism. I consider myself both, but mostly because I want to rescue liberalism from the well it has fallen into. Count me among the leftists who believe in the sovereign equality of states. And because of that, our failing in Iraq was not simply that the war was prosecuted ineptly but that it was wrong from the outset. There were transparently too many benefits which were going to accrue to the US at the expense of Iraq if the war succeeded.

If you didn't notice, I didn't post in response to you, I posted in response to Ellen.  I deliberately avoided you.  I am not interested in communicating with you after your abusive behavior on the other thread.  I cannot help that you are on this page as well.

Do not post in response to me.

Ellen

You are certainly right about your first point.

However, there is most certainly evil. It has been the American Left's denial of the existence of evil that partially explain's the fix the world is in and why the American Left is basically irrelevant outside of Berkeley, Cambridge and Vermont and I suppose Greenwhich Village.

Not everything is relative and not everything can be explained away by either social-economic-political or psychological explanations.

As an aside while Brooks often spouts nonesense to dismiss him as just a Republican mouthpiece is ridiculous. As for Obama we are not used to politicans who seem to know any philosophers and Americans really don't like "egg-head" politicians.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Well, I don't consider response to your posts to be "abuse" and it's unfortunate you feel that way about an open forum.

But your rating abuse and your attempting to dictate who may respond to your comments, most certainly is abusive and against TPM policies.

Your recent pompousness on the "utilitarian" nature of "this crowd" is an open call for response. And questioning which Niebuhr we're referring to because "there are others" (oi vey!) well it's just hilarious sciolism of Novak proportions.

And I mean Bob Novak, the bloviating pundit, althoooogh theherr are othaars you knoooow.

Hmm! I'm not sure "evil" and "merely" belong in the same paragraph. But then again, if your favored context is Saturday morning cartoons (or Star Wars?) . . . .

The concept of "evil" is metaphysical nonsense.

Not really.

"Evil" is simply a synonym for "wrong" which is often preferred by mystics or those who emphasize religious dogma.

"Wrong" is simply a synonym for "evil" which is often preferred by dentological philosophers who have much in common with mystics.

Wrong and evil are derivatives of an innate concept which is basically nameless. The innate concept is dualistic value, right/wrong, good/evil, and that is what people actually act upon. It can be described as the positive or negative utility of a thing, in either an instinctual moral sense or conscious rational situational sense, both of which have value.

Both terms are somewhat simplistic reductions and "nonsense" if you want to call them that. Saying one is better than the other without perceiving their common origin and real nature, is truly shallow sophistry.

o.

I see trolling for typos is your best and only response. Like I said, shallow and predictable.

What a churlish and petty response that was.

I don't agree with all he said, and I suspect he means to deny any responsibility among those who provoke "evil" upon themselves by themselves committing acts of evil.

But his post was coherent and with at least enough detail to be meaningful, which is a lot more than I can say for Ellen's glib quips.

Please take note that this is the third set of posts that Kozmik has begun to trash with this kind of behavior.

That is exactly right. Those who commit murder, or engage in female circumcision or any myriad of evils inflicted on others which are defended as culturally valid or understandable for any number of political reasons is nonsense.
Those who inflict harm on others because they think they are the ones with the direct link to God or are going to coerce others into heaven on earth or the ones who are evil.

If that is Saturday morning cartoonish then that is alright.

As an aside I would recommend to all the four volumes by intellectual historian Jeffery Russell on the personification of evil. They are named in chronological order "The Devil" "Satan" "Lucifer" and "Metistopheles." They are well written very interesting and not a lot like cartoons.

Daniel A. Greenbaum