Walter Russell Mead has had on ongoing series of articles discussing a historical review of what he calls the blue social model. In effect, he's uniquely defining in a cohesive way, the lives we've been living (from public to personal, from business to government) the past 100 years or so (but particularly from the Great Depression/New Deal era to the present).

Mead is in effect, giving some semblance of overview to the collapse of our economic, political, and social systems. Moreso, that they're not really collapsing per se, but rather evolving. Life has come to and end, you might say, but life goes on. In essence, we live in "interesting times" (which is an old Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times"), and the blue model series of articles is an effort to articulate what is going on.

...and articulate the changes well.

The whole series is worth reading, but today he gives a great overview (the best so far); if it's the only one you read (or the one that hooks you into wanting to read them), read The Once And Future Liberalism at The American Interest.

One of the main reasons Americans have been so slow to recognize the collapse of the blue model is that the language we use to discuss and think about politics tends to disorganize our stock of understanding about our own society. Millions of Americans are conservatives and even reactionaries but think of themselves as "liberals”; at the same time, millions of genuine liberals and even radicals call themselves conservative. It's an unholy mess that calls desperately for a language intervention. Let us begin with an historic meditation on the "L” word.

...But it's not true. Neither aged version of liberalism can adequately address what Americans most want. In particular, neither can provide a new era of rising mass prosperity for the overwhelming majority of the American people. Nobody has a real answer for the restructuring of manufacturing and the loss of jobs to automation and outsourcing. As long as we are stuck with the current structures, nobody can provide the growing levels of medical and educational services we want without bankrupting the country. Neither "liberals” nor "conservatives” can end the generation-long stagnation in the wage level of ordinary American families. Neither can stop the accelerating erosion of the fiscal strength of our governments at all levels without disastrous reductions in the benefits and services on which many Americans depend.

There's more (much more) as it's a long article, and the above was taken somewhere near the end. You really should read it.

Oh. And as per his argument above about conservative viz liberal ...it's really true. We are liberals (in the traditional meaning of the term), though we call ourselves conservatives. (And most people calling themselves liberals, are actually conservatives.)

Very odd, that.

Posted by: fairwhether at 07:03 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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