Observers of political life in America today routinely cite the intensification of partisanship but less often dwell on its correlative: open indifference to principles and, in some cases, scorn for Lady Principle herself.
An extreme example of indifference to principles is the case of evangelical Christians who swear by Donald Trump, an impudently unrepentant sinner oblivious of any higher will than his own. (Seek forgiveness? “I don't bring God into that picture.”) Devoutly religious people ought to have principles, to say the least. Religious faith is, after all, surrender to an elemental principle. Religious practice consists in the observance of attendant principles. Religiosity loses its character when untrammeled by principles. And that's what has happened. The most bumptious of Christian zealots, seeing a political advantage, have turned themselves into pagan idolaters.
Idolatry seems an apt term for any partisan alternative to the work of conserving common reservoirs of good. Idolatry — the worship of an artificial god that's there to dispense favors to the favored. The difference between thoroughgoing partisanship and even faltering service to impartial principles is the difference between the prayer "Make me successful" and the prayer "Make me good."
An idol may take the form of a construct named like a principle but set up for the antithetical purpose of granting its priesthood unspecified latitude. This is the case with equity (the sociopolitical term of art) versus equality. A commitment to equality hems you in with standards and definite tasks. A commitment to equity turns you loose in a political toyshop. Adherents of equality may admit a need for certain pragmatic steps to offset disadvantages, but adherents of equity will admit nothing. Why should they, if they've got one of the gods of social justice on their side? To the principled question, At what point will equity have been attained?, the partisan reply is always going to be, "We’ll let you know."
Two words commonly conjoined with equity — diversity and inclusivity (or inclusion) — take partisan wordplay further. Whereas equity is a usefully vague replacement for another word, diversity and inclusivity are cases of redefinition. Partisan usage narrows the definition of diversity by reducing its referents to mostly biological identity groups and treating any demand for diversity of worldview or political inclination as counter-revolutionary mischief. The redefinition of inclusivity is a bold inversion of the straightforward meaning, openness to all as on a commons where people of every description can mingle on equal terms. Here, inclusivity means partisan displacement; a game of musical chairs managed so as to shunt some participants to the sidelines while seating others in politically secure positions. As to the inversion of anti-racism, plenty has already been written.
The Republican Party once seemed to be all head and no heart. Now it's nothing but viscera. However, to say that Republicans have changed would miss the mark. They haven't changed so much as they’ve undergone a great replacement. The patrician skinflints who long employed the powers of social darkness as electoral muscle are now reduced to dining elbow-to-elbow with those powers, glumly staring into their soup while the rafters ring with indecent banter. By and by they creep away, taking their principles with them. Obstreperous upstarts, bringing only partisan energy, move in. This is how the party changes.
Worst, at the bar of history, is the fate of those old-school politicians who've acquired more power than they can walk away from. Consider the case of Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader during the presidency of Donald Trump, who nearly distinguished himself at the end of that sordid chapter by orating against Trump’s insurrectionist offenses from the Senate floor, first on January 18, 2021, and again, even more forcefully, on February 13. In the meantime, however, he had found a rationale for saying "not guilty" in the selfsame voice and leading his Republican majority to acquit Trump of those offenses in an impeachment trial. If there's anything more ignominious than to surrender your principles outright, it's to make a stirring show of them while surrendering them as an aside.
Such is the open indifference to principles in American political life today. It exists on both sides of the left-right divide, much to the disgust of the middle. However, scorn for the very principle of bowing to principle is especially an ace in the hole of activists on the cultural left.
People who wish to re-order society (or who wish to sweep away the competition in their own careers) have an interest in overthrowing impersonal principles; not only common standards, blindfold assessments, and impartial procedures, but also those principles of individual conduct that regulate esteem.
The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture recently [as of July, 2020] unveiled guidelines for talking about race. A graphic displayed in the guidelines, entitled "Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness in the United States," declares that rational thinking and hard work, among others, are white values.
In the section, Smithsonian declares that "objective, rational, linear thinking," "quantitative emphasis," "hard work before play," and various other values are aspects and assumptions of whiteness.
The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture had no comment for Newsweek. They referred to the website's page titled "Whiteness" when asked for additional comment. The graphic was later removed from the page.
It's often impossible to know when the anarchic impetus is actually coming from a member of the minority that's supposed to profit by it and when it's coming from a majority-group ally, but it's telling that the rationale may spill over into "the soft bigotry of low expectations" without being caught until complaints lead to a retraction and apology. Profoundly telling. The image of the white savior reaching down to join hands with children of nature could hardly find a more appropriate application. It makes no difference whether the authors of patronizing declarations like the Smithsonian's are themselves white or not. The mentality is of privileged-white origin.
This is one of the pitfalls in the anti-principle path. It's the summer of 2020. Some politically acute person encounters the new whipping-boy of "whiteness" and wishes to take part in the whipping. The word suggests Northern European colonizers and their culture, so — Puritanism, Protestant work ethic, Age of Reason, etc. Yes, that’s the ticket. Deprecate hard work and analytical thought, and you strike a blow against whiteness. It's just that with this narrow focus on discrediting a particular political object, you fail to notice ramifications and contradictions. After all, the world is home to work ethics that owe nothing to Protestantism, and analytical thought that owes nothing to a certain phase of European history. Throughout American society and elsewhere, such wellheads of principle are valuable resources. People whose acuteness is of the non-political kind understand that this is so. If they know they belong in the company of capable people, they won't take kindly to being cast as outsiders.
Before that summer, a certain principle held a prominent place among black commentators: the principle of black agency. Racial justice, to be genuine and honorable, must be won by black people and not dispensed by white ones. Then came the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the racial reckoning that ensued, and suddenly the good offices of whites were available in superabundance. When such a host of well-connected white allies had mustered for the fight against racism, it was hardly possible to deny them leading roles even if that wouldn't have been terribly self-defeating in practical terms. Thus black activists found themselves employing the powers of whiteness as muscle and more. At the same time, it was to be understood that black people — that is, some incorporeal black authority with the power of speaking through individuals — would preside as arbiter of racial truth. This was the way forward: black agency brought to you by white agents.
We'll never know, or won't till times have changed again, what results the uncompromised principle of black agency would have achieved. It was hard but not impossible to foresee the jumble of good intentions and wanton impulses, of productive work and destructive play, that resulted from the compromise. At a minimum, a worthy cause might have been spared association with schoolteachers' fevered takeaways from critical race theory and minor bureaucrats' inability to do a number on whiteness without insulting blacks.
The path of principle is not magical in the sense that it necessarily leads to the success of any project. However, it is magical in that it starts from every point on the compass and leads to a common reservoir of good. It's like the path of unbiased reporting in journalism. Freedom from bias may be unattainable, but it makes a world of difference whether journalists strive toward it or not. Their striving leads to the place of best conditions for accurate understanding. Principled effort by people engaged in politics, or at least by their audience, would lead to the place of best conditions for wise political behavior. Principles may be mirages, but the principle of Principle is a true oasis.
