The Jacksonian Tradition
Dean
One of the most important political articles of the last decade was undoubtedly Walter Rusell Mead's The Jacksonian Tradition from the Winter 1999 isue of The National Interest. I have linked this essay at least twice in the past, and discussed it many times. It's a startling essay, one in which I immediately recognized most of the people I grew up with, including most of my family, and in which I recognized a huge number of my own political instincts growing up. Although I probably don't count as a Jacksonian anymore, unlike a lot of people I recognize and respect the tradition and the mindset--once again, probably because it so accurately matches the world as I knew it for most of my young life, and still matches so many people I know.
I think the article is such a classic it will likely still be discussed in political science and history and even military classes one hundred years from now. I was talking about it with my friend Kevin today and he had never heard about or read it, so I decided to bring it up again. So here it is: Walter Russell Mead's The Jacksonian Tradition.
It is quite long. It is absolutely worth reading all the way through.
This article, by the way, goes a long way toward explaining both why we went to Iraq, and why the American public is growing restless with the cause: it's not because people are growing more dovish, although some undoubtedly wish it were so. Rather, a large segment of the public is increasingly seeing the Bush administration as too dovish.
No, really. Go read the essay. Set aside a half-hour to absorb the whole thing. It's absolutely worth the time. Foreigners should find it especially illuminating, as it likely illustrates both what they like best and what they like least in Americans.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Further Info On Mead
- Hiroshima - The Last Word
- The Jacksonian Tradition
- War To The Knife
- Hiroshima
- 60 Years Ago Today
You've stated this often but I'm not sure what exactly you mean by it. Are you saying you believe that all people are not equal in a civil/human rights sense? Or something else?
Who does that sound like? Man... this essay rules.
Note how many of our heroes, from John Wayne's Cowboys/Military types, to Rambo, to 'Die Hard' are Jacksonian.
Would be an interesting discussion about the charaters in Star Wars with respect to the taxonomy of political types (for example, I'd guess Luke's Uncle Owen was Jacksonian, while the Jedi's were not...)
I believe that all men and women are equally endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness -- and equal in no other sense.
Also, I should add that my elitism does not hold that philosophers are necessarily better than plumbers, but rather that some plumbers are better than other plumbers, that some philosophers are way better than other philosophers, that some pipes and some philosophies hold water much better than do others.
At any rate, I've found this streak most noticeable in several of friends who tend to vote Democrat, but voted for Bush in 2004. To them, it would have been absolutely unacceptable to not have a military response after 911, and they have little concern about the strength of the ties that Al Qaeda might or might not have had with Saddam.
Also, this streak tends to be more prominent among my 30 year old friends than our baby-boomer parents. At least that's my observation, which admittedly, might not mean all that much.
It is an odd read for me, however. I recognize what he's describing as being a strong part of mainstream American culture - and yet, it doesn't describe me, nor anyone in my social circle. The article does, however, do a lot to explain why I feel so ... disconnected ... with mainstream political culture. :)
:)
Explained a lot, I thought.
My guess would be then that you live on one of the coasts, possibly some place like San Francisco, New York City outside of Queens or the Bronx, Boston, Seattle, or someplace like that?
The political culture here is *very* different.
As for the Jacksonian tradition: Mead describes it, accurately I think, as the largest and most influential group in America, but that doesn't necessarily make them the majority. I'd guess that it's somewhere around 35% of the population, clustered most noticeably between the coasts.
In the movies, you see it in guys like John Wayne and Bruce Willis and Will Smith. It's also definitely the people I grew up with in blue collar C hicago and in cities like El Paso in Texas.
Also worth taking a look at is his more recent book, Power, Terror, Peace, and War. I wrote a lengthy commentary on it shortly after it came out. He's very much on a parallel track with Tom Barnett of PNM fame. The part of PTPW that I found most enlightening was Mead's explication of “Fordism” which is the most succinct explanation of today's Democratic Party (and Europe's majority parties) I've ever read.
The fourth pillar in the Jacksonian honor code struck Mrs. Trollope and others as more dishonorable than honorable, yet it persists nevertheless. Let us call it financial esprit. While the Jacksonian believes in hard work, he or she also believes that credit is a right and that money, especially borrowed money, is less a sacred trust than a means for self-discovery and expression. Although previous generations lacked the faculties for consumer credit that Americans enjoy at the end of the twentieth century, many Americans have always assumed that they have a right to spend money on their appearance, on purchases that affirm their status. The strict Jacksonian code of honor does not enjoin what others see as financial probity. What it demands, rather, is a daring and entrepreneurial spirit. Credit is seen less as an obligation than as an opportunity. Jacksonians have always supported loose monetary policy and looser bankruptcy laws.
I guess you missed it. ;-)
I am a little familiar with this line of thought from an interview I heard with this guy
And a Canadian novel which describes Canadian immigrants from the same backgrounds but living in Nova Scotia.
If you want to win a war, you kill or hurt your enemy in large numbers, render them scared shitless of you, compel their surrender, and remind them you will kill all the survivors and plow up their lands with salt, Roman style, if ever there is a round number two.
Either that, or don't get involved with them in the first place.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I recall -a while back- that he once remarked here that Bush's approach seemed to be working after all, to his (Arnold's) suprise, and mine as well. I never would have expected that from our favorite codger.
Alas, in this case "the enemy" is not the population of Iraq, which is what Arnold seems to be implying.
The enemy includes Baathist irredentists, criminal gangs, Sunni Islamic Republic fanatics, and Shiite Islamic Republic fanatics.
Since the various elements rudely refuse to wear identifying name tags, it is fairly challenging to separate the the civilian wheat from the lunatic trash in this conflict.
BTW, Dean, (speaking as the guy who pointed you to that article in the first place) you're welcome...
Heh.