William Egginton, “The Splintering of the American Mind”

 

William Egginton discusses his book, “The Splintering of the American Mind”, at Politics and Prose on 8/27/18.

In this trenchant analysis, Egginton argues that our current national crisis is the result of personal identity ideals overwhelming our sense of community. This imbalance is especially pronounced on college campuses, where identity politics is the norm. Along with turning institutions of higher learning into exclusive, expensive clubs for the cultural and economic elite, this focus on individualism is leading to a new kind of intolerance, degrading civic discourse, and distracting progressive politics from its commitment to equality. Showing that this trend, unlike the civil rights movement, feminism, and gay pride, will not result in positive social changes, Egginton, a professor and director of the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute at Johns Hopkins, calls for a return to liberal education‘s egalitarian values.

https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9…

William Egginton is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and Chair of the Department of German and Romance Languages and Literatures at Johns Hopkins University, USA. He is the author of In Defense of Religious Moderation, How the World Became a Stage, Perversity and Ethics, A Wrinkle in History, The Philosopher’s Desire, and The Theater of Truth. He is also the coeditor of Thinking with Borges and The Pragmatic Turn in Philosophy. Egginton writes for the digital salon Arcade, published by Stanford University, and The Stone, an online forum for contemporary philosophers published by the New York Times. His intellectual biography of Cervantes, The Man Who Invented Fiction, will be published by Bloomsbury in 2014.

Partisan Identity is More Important to Those with an Existing Identity

Minorities do not consider the Republican party more religious (22 min)

Most white people don’t identify strongly as Italian.  They identified as Methodist or Baptists, but now that religion is less important, political partisanship matters more.

Minorities aren’t looking to political identity for their identity.

 

Ep 333: Drew Dyck Disciplines Himself

If you become disciplined to pursue a self-interested, bad goal, what does that gain you.

If you think the right things, truth, it will transform their character.  But why is it some of the most theologically smart people are A-holes.

Things that Deplete your Willpower:

Decision making, Conflict, Sleep

Flee temptation. If you are always relying on willpower, you will fail.

This is where habits are important

  1. Pick one thing.  Don’t try to do 5 New Year’s Resolutions at once
  2. You can’t delete Bad Habits, only replace them
    • Cue, Routine, Payoff
    • Replace social media with Bible reading
  3. Jesus take the wheel
    • Someone says that they will not brush their teeth unless they felt called by the spirit
    • Grace is not opposed to effort.  Grace is opposed to earning.
    • Sanctification is often a slow transformation process.
    • I am what’s wrong with the world: G.K. Chesterton
  4. In the long run, self-discipline is about delayed-gratification.  It is easier in the long run.

 

Evangelicals and the 5 Stages of Grief:  (30 min)

We are between anger and bargaining and this Trump Faustian bargain was out of desperation over demographic change.

Sociologists refer to the Driver’s license -> Marriage License Gap

Fewer people are coming back to the church because the gap is longer and people figure out how to live without it.

Reinforce Republican identity and threat, not from Satan or poverty, or oppression, but an enemy of Democrats

  • Us vs them, mitigating our fears in the amygdala
  • If fear is a big part of your life, you are not living as a Christian
  • I am not a fearvangelica
  • A lot of people believe that being afraid makes them Godly
  • It is very hard to convince someone who is marinating in fear that they don’t need to fear.
  • Phil’s Idea: inside out with fearful evangelicals

Could an Amy Klobuchar Solve Democrats’ Dilemma?

They seek a presidential candidate who appeals to both their liberal coastal base and to Midwestern working- and middle-class voters

When asked recently who Republicans should fear most in the 2020 presidential campaign, two prominent GOP figures, both women speaking independently of each other, gave the same response: Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

A third Republican, a male, asked which kind of candidate Democrats should want, replied: “They need a boring white guy from the Midwest.”

So, there you have it: The dream ticket of Amy Klobuchar and Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Case closed, cancel the primaries, on to the general election.

So if all that creates an opportunity for Democrats in 2020, here’s their dilemma: Can they pick a candidate who can blend the party’s conflicting impulses?

This may seem a long ways off, but the reality is that most Democrats thinking of running for president—and the number probably runs into the 20s—plan to make their decision over the next several weeks, so they can move out starting in early 2019.

As this drama begins, the key question is whether the party will find somebody who appeals both to its coastal base dominated by progressives, upscale college graduates, millennials and minorities, or choose someone who is more appealing to traditional working- and middle-class voters in industrial Midwest states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, all of which helped Democrats reclaim the House in this year’s mid-term elections.

.. The winning lottery ticket, of course, goes to somebody who can appeal to both. And that’s why Ms. Klobuchar’s name—and profile—attract attention. She’s a woman, obviously, which is important at a time when newly energized women are a growing force within the party. She pleased her party base in the hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh when she challenged him about his use of alcohol, but did so in a sufficiently calm and understated manner that she won an apology from Mr. Kavanaugh after he initially responded angrily.

.. She also won re-election this year with more than 60% of the vote in the one state Trump forces lost in 2016 but think they have a legitimate chance to flip their way in 2020.

.. The question is whether she or anyone can put together a policy agenda that pleases both party liberals, who are pushing for

  1. a Medicare-for-all health system,
  2. the demise of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement system and an
  3. aggressive new climate-change action plan, and more moderate Midwestern voters, who may be scared off by all of those things.

Ms. Klobuchar’s policy priorities may suggest a path. To address health care, the top priority of Democratic voters, she advocates a step-by-step approach, one that seeks to

  • drive down prescription drug costs by opening the door to less-expensive drugs from Canada,
  • protect and improve the Affordable Care Act, and
  • expand health coverage by considering such steps as allowing more Americans to buy into the Medicare system.

.. She’s talked of a push to improve American infrastructure that would include expanding rural Americans’ access to broadband service, paying for it by rolling back some—though not all—of the tax cuts Republicans passed last year. She pushes for more vigorous antitrust enforcement, more protections for privacy and steps to curb undisclosed money in politics

.. For his part, Sen. Brown, a liberal who this year won Ohio as it otherwise drifts Republican, offers a working-class-friendly agenda that combines progressive impulses for government activism to drive up wages with Trumpian skepticism about trade deals and corporate outsourcing.