Some are born to blog, and some have blogging thrust upon them.

There’s a
joke that circulates among evangelical circles about Presbyterians. The joke
asks why Presbyterians don’t raise their hands during worship. The answer: because
they’re afraid God will call on them. There
appears to be a similar rule when it comes to blogs which is that if you enjoy
spending your time among the discussion threads throwing ripe fruit at the talent,
eventually the management is going to get annoyed and ask you to get up on
stage and prove you can do better. In this particular case Professor Lawler
with the aid of some nudging by Robert Cheeks constitutes the management. So my
sincere thanks goes to both Peter and Mr. Cheeks for their generosity, and if
there are any here who find anything I write in anyway questionable, please feel
free to forward all complaints to those two gentleman.

It seems
serendipitous to be, at this of all times, entering the ranks of contributors
to First Thoughts (Postmodern Conservative Division). One of the greatest
projects of liberal statist religion has been in the process of a slow motion
mugging by reality and, as the president might say, it offers us all an
opportunity for “a teaching moment”. This is a good thing, but certainly
shouldn’t be taken lightly. Discerning critics need to be precise, even
surgical, in how they speak to the failures on display right now in the world,
not just with respect to policy, but more importantly to culture. To this end,
a lot of great stuff is being written here speaking precisely to that need. For
my part, I look at the last few decades and find the sustaining appeal of statism
to be the most interesting feature. Fascinatingly, despite the evidence, the
western world came out of the 20^th century with the lesson that
bigger and more intrusive government is better. Granted this is never how it is
advertised, and disingenuous messaging mixed with a dose of intellectual conceit
appears to be a big part of its political success. But regardless, the attraction
seems to stick despite the practical historical circumstances.

As we are
learning now, despite events like the Obamacare rollout, there remains to be made
to the public a compelling positive case for thoughtful conservative
alternatives, and I submit that an important part of making that argument is to
better understand the nature of the appeal of these grandiose public programs
that seem to punctuate our political history every generation or so (or every
eight years depending on your interpretation of the previous Bush
administration). My suspicion is that this appeal has little to do with the
typical American’s notion of what is good policy.

There are
some who see the liberal statist project as a kind of culmination of the
Christian ideals of compassion and social justice. For those of us on the other
side of the policy aisle it’s difficult not to instead think of the spectacle once
on display before Moses, of Hebrews dancing around a golden calf thought to be
Yahweh. To be sure there are idols on both sides of the aisle and we Postmodern
Conservatives have, I think, been distinguished as among those whose contributions
have helped navigate through the various clichés and talking points that typify
the political idols of our time, both left and right. If this country is ever
going to achieve a view of policy and culture in light of their actual, rather
than deified, purposes it will be because of contributors like those on this
blog.

I’ll add here
that a helpful touchstone for my thinking has been the conviction that
Augustine was ultimately right that human beings live with a God-sized lack in
their souls. One consequence of this is that much of the absurdity that characterizes
human behavior suddenly becomes explicable when understood as the
characteristic symptoms of a creature attempting to find a remedy by means
other than acknowledging the true nature of that absence. Much of what passes
today for ideological visions of a better future, as well as the vindictiveness
directed at believers of different political stripes, I view as like those
passionate disputes between spouses about whose turn it is to do the dishes.
Ultimately, the argument has nothing to do with the dishes. There are passions
at work that go far deeper than the subjects the various parties believe
themselves to be arguing about.

To this end it
seems to me what may be helpful is a kind of anthropology of ideology – an
investigation into why the public appears to gravitate so readily to theories
of government as a meta-placebo for the problems of existence. And here I hope
to add to the very important discussions occurring on this blog and look
forward with great enthusiasm to engaging with my fellow threaders in the
discussion threads.

Hopefully
I’ll also learn to duck when appropriate as well.

* In a
Solomonic gesture, the author has chosen to forgo his first name, Michael, and
replace it with his middle name, Forfare, in an effort to preempt any further
confusion with the prestigious professor from Sarah Lawrence College, Michael
Davis, or for that matter the socialist writer from Southern California by the
same name, or any other members of the large Michael Davis demographic that may
be out there. We are legion …