Our problems stem not from hunks of metal and roads. They stem from people who increasingly lack discipline, principle and a sense of decency.
If you're arguing that there's a lack of decency and principle in contemporary American society, you won't get any disagreement from me. But to establish a causal relationship between the absence of such values and the decline of urban America is problematic. To some extent cities have always been repositories for outsiders' imaginations; non-urban dwellers have long projected images of rot and decadence onto the city, and we should keep such historical prejudices in mind when we examine the issue of urban America.
But IMHO, the causes of urban blight, are far too complex to be shoved into William Bennett's neat little paradigm. I think people on all sides of the political spectrum deserve some blame, as well as average American people who let their racism get the best of them and abandoned ship to suburbia.
Johannes, attributing social problems to a lack of decency and principle presents a practical quandary: how do you infuse society with those values? Do you legislate morality? Do you simply urge others to live by certain codes? Better to concentrate on enhancing people's economic stature and hope they act decently and with principle once they're financially secure (fat chance!) than to urge them to take up what they likely see as archaic values.
I once tried to explain the importance of "honor" to a friend. "That's so medieval!" she responded. :-)
In Chicago and New York, a combination of economic factors and policy decisions have helped spark an uprecedented urban renaissance. Chicago's actually gaining in population for the first time in decades, and decisions to tear down two of the most notorious public housing projects on the planet--Cabrini Green and the Robert Taylor Homes--have sparked new commercial and residential construction in two troubled, formerly gang-soaked swaths of the city. So though it's nice to talk about principle and decency, wonkish policy types bring home the bacon, so to speak.
And that's primarily the level at which people support Clinton--they see the infrastructural and economic improvements that have occured under his watch on the one hand, see his ethical handicaps on the other, and decide the good outweighs the bad. What good to Joe Sixpack (or Joe Clickpack to designate Web-savvy Americans) are the abstract values of principle and decency compared to the concrete accomplishment of tearing down a housing project, building a park, or rebuilding a school system, as has been done by loyal Clintonite Richard Daley Jr. in Chicago?
Can you not see how destructive this is? The people, the whole nation and not a jury, have said Clinton is free to flagrantly commit crime. Have they ever said this of anyone in out country?
Since the ur-Western urban civilizations of Mesopotamia powerful people with connections have gotten away with things for which ordinary folks would be hung. Only in some priveliged, mytho-pastoral fantasy of America have things ever been any different.
in Clinton's case the people certainly know both the crime and the culprit and yet without that culprit appealing to the mercy of their system have granted him mercy anyway. The system has been circumvented. Has this ever happened?
I don't think so. We live in interesting times, don't we? I suggest you read the Economist article good ol' Les posted here recently. Basically, the Economist argues that a history of lawerly excesses and increasing tolerance have paved the way for Americans' great yawn at the whole affair, i.e. they are sick of lawyers and hesitant to judge what they see as the personal lives of others.
If Clinton had lied about an improper bank account and instead of an improper sexual relationship, Americans' outrage would be greater. Money scandals are far hotter in the U.S. than sex scandals, whereas it's the reverse in the U.K. |
