Feedback and Critical Commentary on
"Renewing the American Experiment"
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by David C. Korten
Lee Drutman,
Communications Director, Citizen Works
Thank you also for sharing the draft of "Renewing the
American Experiment." I couldn't agree more with the underlying premise: that we
need a new set of myths for American society, ones that reflect a more shared
sense of prosperity and community. Corporations have been distressingly
successful at promoting a market-based view of society, where those items that
can be commodified and sold and generate profits are held in high esteem while
those items that cannot be commodified and sold and will not generate profit,
such as love, friendship, community, family have been devalued, or at least
valued only as means to sell products that will somehow make you more appealing
to others (cosmetics, cars, whatever..). However, my reading of intellectual
history is that the elite class has always tried to create a set of myths that
justify and enhance its position in society
— The
divine right of kings, social Darwinism, etc. But at times, these myths have
been exposed as frauds, and when they have, revolutions in society have taken
place.
There was one point you made that really struck me for some reason, which is
your description of the way that George W. Bush deliberately misrepresented his
policies as "a compassionate conservative who would work for ordinary people"
because that is what people wanted. And this is something that Republicans do
all the time. They co-opt the values of the left, which are really the
mainstream values, and then attach them to policies that have nothing to do with
them. Bush is the master of this —
a new level of cynicism in politics of directly misleading people about
the effects of the policies without any sort of compunction, sometimes
bald-faced lies. It is truly unbelievable. But the simple fact that the values
espoused are those of progressives is good news for us in theory. However,
exposing Bush has been surprising difficult. It is worth examining why, I
think...
Is there some way to pull back the curtain, to reveal Bush as more or less the
puppet of the wealthy special interests who have propped him up all along,
pouring millions of dollars into his campaign, which translates into this
distorted image of our President as an everyman and champion of the everyman?
Meanwhile, since people don't pay much attention to politics (for a number of
reasons including but not limited to 1) the fact that pro-business conservatives
have disparaged government for 25 years as inherently useless and corrupt; 2)
the fact that media coverage of politics is limited and degraded because it
interferes with profit; 3) that the brains of many people are addled by the
nonstop dumbed-down action of television and other entertainment) they've lost
the ability to seriously engage or even want to seriously engage in politics.
Hence, they either don't care the Bush is lying because that's what politicians
do or they believe him because they're too lazy to investigate. To me, I think
the whole direction of our political economy is not so much the result of a
handful of corporatist conservatives taking a power grab, but really the result
of corporate interests taking control of our government and the electoral
process to the point where can largely choose who runs and who wins based on
where they put their money. To me, this is a story that should resonate.
Still, these are provocative questions that you pose in this piece and I hope we
will continue to discuss these ideas more in the future.
Posted December 26, 2004
