Never said I the Religious Right had a vision for a future, only some conception of an ‘ideal society,’ which may be past. Still, I am curious what and how you would contest.

Socialite skepticism? I’m not much of a cowboy and have little time for trysts. If you wish to question me on my writings send an email to joel.anselm.dietz at google’s mail service and I will post my blog. I’ll continue to answer the questions I raise as best I am able.

Good places to start understanding my approach, perhaps, are here and here. Comprehensive nonviolence is also vital (here and here and here). Perhaps you’ve seen these already.

There is a lot to be said for waiting about certain things. Patience is a virtue my mother taught me that I value very much.

I agree very much with what you say about pay grade. You’re absolutely right. But I also agree with the sense in which Obama said it: who is he to decide when life begins? He said that in a church and I think the implication is that perhaps only God can answer a question like that. In the meantime, people have to sort out approximations.

Finally. It is hurtful to me that you imply that my approach ends in “‘diverse’ peoples left naked and ready to be exploited.” I’m open to the possibility that you’re right, but I hope you aren’t making such accusations lightly and without careful thought. It feels throughout this discussion like you are angry at me for some reason, and nothing I say seems to ease that tone in your responses. Maybe, if I’m not saying what you want me to say, it is up to you to say it instead. I’d be very eager to hear!

As you point out occasionally in this space, the religious right is reasonably certain and uniform in expressing what it believes in: respect for unborn life, family values (defined traditionally of course), suspicion towards science, and various other components that make up the ‘Judeo-Christian ethic,’ I reference earlier. That is to say, such persons believe in something. They have a vision of an ideal society.

But, as you admit, you do not. But you do have things that you do not believe in (e.g. ‘racism’ as expressed by white construction workers in Philadelphia), and various other components that make up what I have taken to calling the ‘anti-narrative.’ But what can you do with a lot of things you do not believe in? Does this ever coalesce into anything — or is the final result simply ‘diverse’ peoples left naked and ready to be exploited — as in fact African-Americans are and have been ever since they ended up neglected in Northern ghettos that even the police do not enter. Have you been?

The reason I bring up ‘pay grade,’ is because the pecuniary aspect, at least in my mind, has nothing to do with the intellectual. There is no relation between how good you are and how rich you are. It is indicative of our society (and, perhaps, its Puritan roots) that we connect money with intelligence and success but I find this a mistake, however common.

In any case, ‘wait and see’ just ain’t good enough for me.

Some time ago I pointed out that the period of the most exciting intellectual debates in Germany coincided with the rise of Nazism. So I doubt that simply stronger intellectual subcultures will be of much help.

I’ve done all I can here to resist the herd instinct to support Obama dogmatically (while suggesting that people beware of that instinct in themselves too). My recent post on ‘Bama, as well as others linked to it, make clear that my support is a skeptical one, one that is waiting to see (what else can it do?). I am quite incapable of going whole-hog for the guy. Activism, generally, seems not in my temperament. But I think it is good for thinking to test one’s ideas through action—that is exactly what happened when I went canvassing in Philadelphia.

As a thinker (whether or not I am your “intellectual,” you can’t take thinking away from me), I don’t feel a terrible responsibility to have a position on every “infrastructure” at all times. I’m learning, watching, and waiting. Often I am more interested in exploring the “communitarian ethics” that emerge on their own rather than consciously crafting ones of my own to foist upon the public. Even so, I still find plenty to write about; hopefully others find what I say interesting.

It may be sensible to repeat a paragraph from the About page here:

My tone and method is precisely speculative: every word is exactly hypothesis. I believe in the importance of free-ranging explanation, while recognizing fearfully that with even the most casual remark we are building ourselves and our world irrevocably.

What Obama really said at Saddleback was “above my pay grade,” so I used the wrong word. But I’m not seeing the Freudian slip. Maybe I’m still too delusional, or just dense.

It’s interesting, your language about “a non-politically aligned subculture that can make statements about values — that will of course have political implications” brings to mind the current controversy surrounding churches that want to be able to make political endorsements while still evading taxation. It sounds like you’re talking about starting a church. But there are already lots of those out there.

The one thing I have suggested is that the task of the intellectual is to step back from present political debates and create a non-politically aligned subculture that can make statements about values — that will of course have political implications. The problem as I see it is that you are making what are essentially political endorsements (for not so ‘ol Obama), which crosses the bridge from the world of intellect to the world of activism, without any explanation of your intellectual support or values for doing so. Now if you want to say, ‘I am confident enough in the claims of Sojourners/NY Times/Mother Jones and feel that what we need to do is *act* on these claims,’ that’s fine. I’m not offended by that, but I will treat you as an activist and not an intellectual (and probably stop responding to your posts).

Activists have their place and I love them; my position, however, is that America needs more genuine intellectuals to build the sort of real infrastructure (including bridges) that would sustain a feasible communitarian ethic.

In the end, if you don’t have infrastructure, you don’t have anything.

I appreciate your pushing me to go further in this discussions, and I’m happy to try, but I think you’re reading me wrong to think that my questions are meant for me to answer!

I think that one *must* separate values from plans. For instance, what is our ideal society? Is it (A) to have more or less equal distribution of wealth, while people make love and music instead of working (B) to have a bell curve shaped society, where there are few rich, few poor, and a large middle class or (C) to have a few people with lots and lots of money, while the rest play in their casinos. Clearly there are many more options than this, but if you support a new New Deal in the event of an Obama presidency, it seems again the onus is on you to say why you support this — something more than ‘dancing’ or that your peers in the class of relatively wealthy Manhattanites support it. That’s not an argument, that’s not ethics, that’s simply stating you believe something because people around you do the same.

If we could state what we are trying to obtain, then we can analyze whether or not a specific economic or social policy will help us obtain this goal. If we confine ourselves to thinking that is ‘communitarian’ instead of individual, we absolve ourselves of the responsibility to think as well as act. I’ve seen this in Communist countries and the results are not pretty.

So if you desire something other than lost epicycles, here is a concrete question, “What is the substance of a new deal you would support and why?”

“Communitarian ethics” becomes tangible in its particularities, in its communities. I think some of the difficulty here, which perhaps you’re pointing to, is the fact we’re getting lost trying to figure out universal principles rather than sorting out the ethics we, personally and as a community, want to live by.

Or perhaps not. Talking cogently about ethics, economics, and their grounding in discourse is not easy but worthwhile if we can make ‘communitarian ethics’ tangible instead of auroral. But you are the one advocating for such — I posit the onus is on you at this moment to say something other than ‘merrily, merrily, merrily.’

Although I also like these words, and that song.