In a comments thread I was reading last week, one of the commenters was ranting about how one of the left’s weaknesses is the “secret Disney liberals.” By which he meant (IIRC — I wasn’t able to find it again) naive liberals who believe the endgame should be a “post-political” world in which everyone has the lower levels of the hierarchy of needs marked off. That is, they have food, shelter, safety, emotional support and self-esteem/respect, leaving them free to work on self-actualization, the highest level. The commenter seemed to think this concept hilariously unrealistic.
I can’t recall encountering the attitude he talks about, though as I only browse a fraction of the liberal blogosphere that doesn’t prove anything. I don’t think it’s unrealistic, however, and I don’t think it’s at all post-political.
Working to build a world where everyone has their basic needs met is what we should be doing. It’s a sentiment that goes back to the Book of Micah: “Everyone shall sit under his vine [olive vine, I believe] and under his fig tree, And no one shall make them afraid; For the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken.” (Micah 4:4) As I wrote back in 2021, peace and prosperity are what we’re striving for. The Clinton years with the good economy, federal budget surplus and our nemesis of decades, the Soviet Union, having collapsed (back then we actually discussed shrinking military spending and putting the money to use for peaceful purposes. Imagine that), would be the best example in my lifetime.
Astonishingly, a lot of people proclaimed that era a dystopian nightmare. What’s the point of living in a country where people can work a 40-hour week, then go home and play video games, read, watch TV, cuddle their spouses or children or dog? Where people don’t worry about being downsized or not having enough to pay the bills? Why were we spending money to give senior better Medicare coverage instead of sending our military out to establish the American Empire? Some pundits celebrated 9/11 for putting an end to all that: now Americans would have to fight and struggle and suffer! Needless to say, pundits such as David Brooks who took this view had no plans to suffer or struggle themselves.
The thing Brooks and ignore is that (to paraphrase Raymond Massey in Things to Come), peace and prosperity don’t eliminate challenge, striving and struggle. They simply leave it up to us whether to struggle and what to strive for. I can state from personal experience that when life is hard and stressful, accomplishing anything beyond the basics can become overwhelming. When you’re safe and have a financial cushion in the bank, it’s much easier to be creative, work on a side hustle, help out your neighbors, train for marathons, etc. The opponents assume ease and comfort will make us slothful and lazy, never accomplishing anything; it can free us up to do more (as this company discovered a few years ago).
Writing a novel, spending more time with your loved ones, doing nothing: it’s up to each individual to figure out what represents the good life to them. As Fred Clark says, “It’s true that in a liberal democracy, the state refrains from supplying you with ‘a teleological vision of the good.’ That’s not something to complain about.
That explains why achieving Micah 4:4 is not a “post-political” project. It’s very political. I’m sure those pundits referenced at my links would love to sit comfortably under their own fig tree but they’re not happy when their inferiors get the same treatment. Racists and misogynists would freak out if a black man or a single mother had as nice a fig tree as theirs. Other people would immediately start scheming to buy up every fig tree and vine in their area and then start charging usurious rates.
Getting to peace and prosperity is political; fighting to keep it is political. It’s an ongoing effort, not a victory we get to declare forever. Contrary to the commenter, I think it’s a worthy goal to shoot for.
