O’Donnell: America’s Flirtation with National Suicide
by James O’Donnell, M.B.A.
I’m one of many who will find himself this election season having to hold his nose as I vote for my presidential choice. I think a fair number of Americans may be in the same camp. I’m also one of those who probably thinks too much. Thinks too much about what is important versus, say, what’s urgent or hot or cute. One of the questions I keep asking myself is, how did we ever get here? How did we get to where these two choices are the best we can do?
I’ve spent a good deal of life managing other people’s money. I also taught college-level economics for 20 years. Both important endeavors I’m glad to have undertaken. I know that money and economics have real importance in this world, and they should. but they’re not ultimately important things.
That may offend or upset some, but I think we live in an unserious country of too many unserious people. We largely want to be free to do whatever we want, especially be entertained, fed, kept comfortable and safe. So, we look for leaders who will avoid the hard stuff; things like $35 trillion dollar deficits, growing at about $2 trillion a year. Many of us are pretty determined to ignore our nation’s sworn enemies who must marvel at the unseriousness of America’s leaders to confront them. Let alone, our unseriousness about what are we to do with our porous borders, growing lawlessness in many cities, a failing educational complex from kindergarten to university, where their own unserious leaders see great issues in stuff like, “Are our children respecting diversity enough? Are they learning the evils of fossil fuels? Are they learning enough about the failures of America? Are they exposed to a vigorous debate over whether each of us is really a male or female? Or does it even matter?” Our universities contextualize important stuff like, “What’s wrong with a little socialism, nihilism, anti-Americanism or antisemitism?”
To me, at least, these are all marks of a deeply, unserious people who need unserious leaders to, above all, take our feelings and our pet virtues seriously.
As I’ve pondered these troubling issues, I stumbled upon a fine guy who probably also thinks too much about the same stuff. His name is Daniel McCarthy, and he is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review.
In the summer 2024 issue of that publication, McCarthy writes about “Democracy Beyond Elections.” And he actually welcomes the thinking of long dead white guys like Alexis de Tocqueville. Dan even confesses that he admires Alexis, recalling the Frenchman’s long-ago visit, back in the 1830s, to a younger, less-decadent America. At one point McCarthy writes: “In the modern world, freedom begins in virtue and ends with utility.”
I think he’s right.
Dan explains, “freedom once in hand comes to be defined by the lack of any clear aim. Everyone can do anything he or she wants, and every wants to be equal.” Sounds like the way the Book of Judges ends: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
Freedom of this sort sounds like license. And those who practice it might be called “libertines.” But doesn’t that describe a lot of what increasingly defines our people today? — “I want what I want. I want it now. And I want it by whatever means necessary.”
I’ll spare you examples.
This kind of self-indulgence has always been out there. However, in its shamefulness, its selfishness, few flaunted it. Now, we’re supposed to celebrate it. And if you don’t get with the program, you — not the libertine — may soon find yourself cancelled, fired, or prosecuted.
This kind of thinking and behavior does more than suggest that making money, by whatever means, and indulging in selfish, kinky, or even evil behavior with little regard for how it affects others is now the highest priority for many.
McCarthy writes, “Whatever makes money will be perceived as good, while what makes less money — or loses money — must be bad; after all, money is simply a stand-in for the multitude (and scale) of human aims and desires.” (Preach it, brother!)
But then McCarthy dives even deeper and swims underwater to show us what’s really going on with some of the bathers:
“In the cultural realm, and in morals too, democratic equality levels the good and bad. The only thing that remains truly bad is whatever is more-than-equal or gets deemed undemocratic. The good is increasingly understood in utilitarian terms, not only as what satisfies the greatest number but also as the most efficient means toward producing subjective satisfaction.”
McCarthy isn’t done yet. He says this may explain why some people are “outraged” when someone suggests that Beethoven might be better than Beyonce. Or maybe that seeking truth beats satisfying feelings.
Back to de Tocqueville, McCarthy notes he feared that “what made human beings noble and good could be lost — men could forget their own souls.”
Maybe they already have, and in increasing numbers, too, as our elites demand we must accept any and every idea and form of human behavior (except conservative religious and political ideas).
Hooray for the radical, autonomous self.
We can’t say we haven’t been warned about this numerous times by those long, dead patriarchs we sometimes have the gall to call our nation’s “Founders,” as well as some faithful former religious and political leaders. G.K. Chesterton was right when he said, “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing. They … become capable of believing in anything.” The increasing secularization of our culture, including its hypersexuality without commitment in marriage and the lack of interest in church attendance, especially by younger people, gives credence to Chesterton’s point.
If political leadership today is understanding what the masses want and giving it to them (“good and hard, too,” as per H.L. Mencken); if political leadership represents what the masses believe — from entitlement to redistributing other people’s money, to limitless abortion, to no bail for criminal behavior, to no restraints on human behavior — that reflects who we are.
We, Americans today, will get what we deserve.
And what we want; what has become paramount for so many of us are the fulfillment of our personal desires and fantasies, not the hard work and delayed gratification of developing character nor the greater good of the nation or its people — even our children.
We want fun. Now!
Some wonder where the adults are — those of drinking age, at least. But really, we need more grown-ups. For too many adults today are suffering from arrested development or terminal adolescence. It’s like doing high school all over again, but this time with money and without a curfew.
A little older but a near contemporary of Chesterton’s was C.S. Lewis. A man with a mind and a soul well worth reading. He stated in “The Abolition of Man”: “We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”
Today, voter surveys tell us that over 60 percent of Americans think we are on “the wrong track.” So why do we keep picking leaders who keep us there? Is it their looks? Their money? Do they entertain us with a laugh or a clever remark? Do they have a big-enough social media presence? I think the truth is they represent who we are, at our core. Or aspire to be — rich, famous, attractive, fun.
John Adams, another Founder and one of those dead, white guys lots of us fret about; one of many who, way back when, in the last eight words of the Declaration of Independence,” pledged his life, his fortune and his sacred honor” to underwrite this great nation, remarked that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.”
What happens when most of us no longer care about orthodox morality or religion? I guess we get the kinds of presidential candidates we do.
Good and hard, too.
May God have mercy on us.
James O’Donnell, M.B.A., is the retired, emeritus, Luke J. Peters Professor of Business and Economics and Executive-in-Resident at Huntington University, Huntington. Before becoming a professor, he was an executive vice \president at Fidelity Investments in Boston. O’Donnell is the author of numerous best-selling books, including “Letters to Lizzie,” dedicated to his wife, who died in a long struggle with cancer. The two were the subjects of a feature-length article in the Wall Street Journal.
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[…] may have had their guard down at a gathering of friends and donors. And as my colleague Jim O’Donnell wrote earlier this week, they are giving us the representation we […]