Post by gainsborough on Aug 6, 2020 8:51:05 GMT -8
The Trump phenomena seems unique to us, and rightfully so: we've never seen anything like it in our time.
But in the big-picture historical view, men like Trump appear with near-predictable frequency. A recent article in the NY Times by Bret Stephens addressed Edmund Burke's view of the French Revolution. Burke embraced the goals of the revolution, but was distressed at its implementation. He felt that many important societal values would be swept away in the furor to tear down the monarchy and build something new. Stephens summed up Burke's perspective as follows (notice how well it describes Trump!):
"Men of experience tend to be cautious about gambling what they have painstakingly gained. Men of theory tend to be reckless with what they’ve inherited but never earned."
Later in the same article, Stephens wrote:
'Above all, Burke would have been disgusted by Trump’s manners. “Manners are of more importance than laws,” he wrote.
“The law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us …. They give their whole form and color to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals, they supply them, or they totally destroy them.”
Trump’s real legacy, in Burke’s eyes, would be his relentless debasement of political culture: of personal propriety; of respect for institutions; of care for tradition; of trust between citizens and civil authority; of a society that believes — and has reason to believe — in its own essential decency. “To make us love our country,” he wrote, “our country ought to be lovely.”
'
I've concluded that Trump is not so unique, not sui generis. Trump represents the predictable culmination of a trend within our country that has been going on for a very long time. Analyzing the nature of that trend is another topic altogether...
But in the big-picture historical view, men like Trump appear with near-predictable frequency. A recent article in the NY Times by Bret Stephens addressed Edmund Burke's view of the French Revolution. Burke embraced the goals of the revolution, but was distressed at its implementation. He felt that many important societal values would be swept away in the furor to tear down the monarchy and build something new. Stephens summed up Burke's perspective as follows (notice how well it describes Trump!):
"Men of experience tend to be cautious about gambling what they have painstakingly gained. Men of theory tend to be reckless with what they’ve inherited but never earned."
Later in the same article, Stephens wrote:
'Above all, Burke would have been disgusted by Trump’s manners. “Manners are of more importance than laws,” he wrote.
“The law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us …. They give their whole form and color to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals, they supply them, or they totally destroy them.”
Trump’s real legacy, in Burke’s eyes, would be his relentless debasement of political culture: of personal propriety; of respect for institutions; of care for tradition; of trust between citizens and civil authority; of a society that believes — and has reason to believe — in its own essential decency. “To make us love our country,” he wrote, “our country ought to be lovely.”
'
I've concluded that Trump is not so unique, not sui generis. Trump represents the predictable culmination of a trend within our country that has been going on for a very long time. Analyzing the nature of that trend is another topic altogether...