David Callahan's Moral Center

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Defending the Family

Julie Polter has an article in Sojourners which is about how religious progressives, and others, can "defend the family." She makes a powerful argument that market-driven economic pressures are undermining the family and that policymakers who care about strengthening family life need to respond to these pressures.

All well and good. I make the same argument in my book. But I don't think we can stop there. The truth is that more powerful market forces haven't just created a harsher economic climate for families, they've also created a harsher cultural by fanning a me-first consumerist mentality in all parts of our society. The ethos of self-interest that is at the heart of laissez-faire ideology is fundamentally at odds with the selfless sense of obligation that is required to sustain family life -- whatever kind of family one is in, whether traditional or non-traditional.

It is not helpful to focus exclusively on the economic pressures on families when most ordinary people recognize that the cultural pressures are just as intense. Conservatives have succeeded in blaming liberalism for creating an anti-family culture. Progressives need an alternative narrative of what has eroded the selfless bonds of family and that narrative should start with the market.

Posted by David Callahan, December 13, 2006, 2006

Self-Interest and Patriotism

Conservatives have been adept since 9/11 at using patriotism as a wedge issue. One reason they've gotten away with this is that, too often, the basic contradictions in conservative ideology around patriotism have gone unquestioned.

Here's the basic problem: Real patriotism is about shared sacrifice and obligation toward others. However, laissez-faire thinkers have insisted for decades that what America needs most is a purer pursuit of self-interest. At every turn, they have sought to weaken, not strengthen, our bonds with fellow citizens. Forget the great democratic ideal of public education, they've said. Every student should get a voucher so they can shop around in the private market. Forget progressive taxation, with its quaint notion that those who have more should give more. A flat tax would be "fairer." Forget Social Security, which binds us like no other program into a shared fate. Everyone should gamble alone at the Wall Street casino. And definitely forget about national health insurance systems, whether it's existing ones like Medicare and Medicaid, or imagined ones that would cover everyone. What we need instead are "Health Savings Accounts" so that each of us can independently squirrel away money for the day that illness strikes.

I suppose an argument can be made on behalf of any of these ideas. What you cannot do, though, is relentlessly demand less public life in favor of more private choice and then turn around and claim the mantle of "patriotism."

Posted by David Callahan, September 11, 2006

Lost Warrior

Bill O'Reilly is no Robert Bork. A decade ago, Bork published Slouching Toward Gomorrah, which still stands today as the single best statement of how conservatives think that liberalism has eroded America's values. O'Reilly's book new book, Culture Warrior, attempts a similar broadside, but with none of Bork's intelligence or depth. Regardless, O'Reilly and Bork make the same basic mistake: They both ignore the many ways in which profit-seeking behavior in a market economy can undermine traditional values. For one small example of this, you need only take a look at the kind of salacious media that spews forth from the empire of Rupert Murdoch, the man who pays O'Reilly's salary.

Murdoch is no liberal, needless to say. But it is hard to think of any single individual in the world today who has done more to push the envelope of sleaze in print and broadcast media. From the beginning, Fox's television dramas were often more sexual than anything found on the major networks and Murdoch's newspapers abroad were among the first to publish photos of topless women on a daily basis.

Bork. Bennett. Coulter. O'Reilly. All the right-wing culture warriors -- the smart ones and the dumb ones -- suffer from the same blindspot. They fail to honestly confront the moral downsides of the market -- downsides that increasingly pose the greatest challenge to the values that most Americans share.

Posted by David Callahan, September 9, 2006

Big Crime, No Perpetrator

Well, here's a moral issue that's not likely to be discussed in this election, much less on the evening news: The pharmaceutical giant Schering-Plough just agreed to pay nearly a half billion dollars to the government to settle charges against it. The government had charged the company with defrauding Medicare of millions and illegally marketing cancer drugs for uses not approved by the FDA. In effect, the company both put patient health at risk and lined its pockets with taxpayer money. The settlement ranks among the largest ever, but other drug and healthcare companies have coughed up similar money in recent years. So nothing new here, which is no doubt why the story was buried by most major newspapers, including the New York Times.

As with most settlements of this kind, no single individual in Schering-Plough admitted wrongdoing of any kind. The company pleaded guilty as a whole, but no executives were named. We've heard of victimless crimes. But perpetrator-less crimes? The case is yet more evidence that personal responsibility, the great moral mantra of recent decades, is selectively applied.

Posted by David Callahan, September 4, 2006

Will Values Matter in 2006?

While there is no consensus on whether "moral values" was actually a decisive concern in the 2004 election, there is little doubt that this area was very much on the minds of voters. Is that still the case now, two years later? It's hard to say, exactly. When voters were asked in a recent CBS News poll what they thought was the biggest problem facing the country, and allowed to give open-ended responses, they listed the war in Iraq, terrorism, the economy, and gas prices. Values didn't even make the list. All signs would seem to point to an election that focuses on security. And Democrats are hard at working trying to ensure that they aren't "Swift-boated" this time around.

On the other hand, values issues are definitely a factor in certain closely contested races. The gubernatorial race in Ohio is a case in point. Republican Kenneth Blackwell is working in close concert with conservative evangelicals in the state in his race against Ted Strickland. Instead of going for moderate voters, he appears to be trying to mobilize the religious base by reaffirming his opposition to abortion and gay marriage. Meanwhile, in other races, the Terry Schiavo episode has re-emerged, as Michael Schiavo tours the country in a personal crusade to unseat members of Congress who voted to intervene in the case.