Sam Brownback’s Overlapping Consensus is Highly Evolved
Sam Brownback, the Senator from Kansas, is routinely mocked on liberal blogs. His hand raising for “not believing in evolution” in the most recent debate, his earnest Christian passion for some issues and his general aura of slightly-off kilter are all easy to make fun of. His NYtimes op-ed is reasonable enough, he’s not a creationist or even obviously an intelligent designer. He believes, as many do, that Darwin can explain the differences between species and possibly the origins of humanity, but that it can’t explain the secret of the cosmos, man’s place on earth, human dignity etc. It’s more an attack on a strawman of amoral Darwinian materialism than the idea that humans emerged from speciation generated by mutation resulting from differing allelic frequencies. In short, it’s what many people believe about Darwin, Brownback was just more honest about it.
But why do I like him so much. I mean, we disagree on so much. My own social views almost make the Party of Death a coherent concept. But Sam and I do agree on a few things, we just come at them from radically different viewpoints. I feel that Brownback, and other politicians and people like Huckabee and David Kuo represent a new branch of religious conservatives, whose politics are based less around hate and disdain, and more around a very Christian idea of love.
What issues has Brownback championed in his time in the senate? Child trafficking, money for AIDS in Africa, Darfur, reforming or curtailing the death penalty and prison reform. These, especially prison reform, are essentially thankless, with no large or natural constituency. Yet Brownback puruses them:
”I had a health issue a few years back, and it really made my faith real,” he said, referring to a bout with cancer. ”It made me think, the things that the Lord would want done, let’s do. His heart is with the downtrodden, so let’s help them.”
Now, liberals have their own motivation to help the down trodden and vulnerable, but politics isn’t about motivation. People like Amanda Marcotte, who create a culture of disdain for such a large portion of Americans’ worldview politically, disable liberals from making contingent alliances on certain issues. Rawls’ notion of an “overlapping consensus” is useful here. Even though he uses it describe comprehensive doctrines agreeing on some political organization, the idea can be used to describe what should be the emerging alliance among bleeding heart liberals and bleeding heart Christian conservatives; their worldviews may be very different, but their policies can be the same. That’s what politics is supposed to be about, right? Even his rhetoric about abortion, besides his ignoring women’s centrality to the issue, is appealing. He speaks of fetuses in terms of innocent life that requires protection, an attitude that many liberals take for people outside the womb.
Brownback, on a personal level, is also immensely appealing. It really takes love for God’s creation and a desire to help the downtrodden and vulnerable to say, adopt two kids, one from China and one from Guatemala. This man also has two heroes, John Brown and William Wilberforce. Say what you will about the tenets of trying to overthrow the South like Spartacus, but at least its a forthright opposition towards the destruction of human dignity slavery wrought. William Wilberforce too, had Brownbackian rhetoric and ideas about banning slavery in England, rhetoric that liberals can and should embrace.
So, what will it be, make snide jokes about his membership of Opus Dei, or make strategic, contingent alliances with people whose passion and rhetoric towards helping the weakest among us would make most liberals blush?
I agree with you in a sense, and I disagree with you to some extent in this particular context.
For myself, I’ve watched Brownback very little, but the guy you describe sounds a lot more likable than the guy I saw stumping for the nomination some weeks ago. For my part, I think abortion is probably morally wrong but sometimes necessary and always necessarily legal, so it’s not like I’m coming from the opposite side anyway — though I am fairly godless.
And if he wasn’t running for president, I would be happy to see people working with him everywhere to solve all kinds of problems. The same goes for Romney, who was once something of a liberal in practice, and even McCain, who is dreadful but has certainly led the charge on issues important to me. Giuliani is the only one in this race who strikes me as completely awful so far.
But I wouldn’t want to work with any of them either, because, in running for the nomination, they have become The Untouchables. They have adopted ludicrous rhetoric for which several may well be too smart or at least well-informed, and they have played to the worst aspects of the Republican base. Giuliani is a pro-choice candidate, sure, but more than that, he’s THE authoritarian candidate, and that’s the main thing and my main fear. And he’s only pro choice because he has to be now. He was willing to more or less give that up.
And I don’t want a single one of them getting credit for bipartisanship, even if it’s genuine. I don’t want their hands on any problems solved. I don’t want a single liberal showing the slightest kindness to any of them unless we can be sure it will hurt them. The next election is that important, the possibilities that bad. Brownback might not be the worst president ever, but it will take a spectacular president to reverse what Bush has begun, and he is not that president.
So let’s not help him look moderate or kind, even if maybe he is in some sense, or could be. Let him come to us. Which he won’t do, because, as I said, he’s running for the nomination. He *wants* to be untouchable. It’s the only way he can win.
Mike Meginnis
May 30, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Hmm, you’re right, why he is running for president, we should probably scorn him. But I’m not talking just about Brownback, though he is probably thebest example, I’m talking abouut how us liberals get freaked out by hearing about “innocent life in the womb” and don’t realize how such sentiments, a reverence for life, can transform in to policy to help the poor and disadvantaged. Brownback has championed many worthwhile initiatives, and we shouldn’t just say “but you’re anti choice and religously conservative, we don’t like you.” And this is for any and all religous conservatives, who, I think, will fast become our allies on certain issues like climate change, and we have to be ready to welcome them, not disdain them.
AND – Brownback’s not winning, so I wouldn’t be too worried.
Matt Zeitlin
May 30, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Fair enough. You’re right that he isn’t winning, I’m just not sure how any of them can win the nomination other than that somebody has to, so they *all* make me nervous.
Also, in all fairness, I don’t know how many non-blogging liberals do get freaked out by “innocent life in the womb” and stuff, though. Like I said, I’m actually fairly sure that’s the right perspective, we just draw different policy conclusions from it.
Mike Meginnis
May 31, 2007 at 7:01 am
Great piece, or post, as we cats who are hep the internet say. I think the point about overlapping interests is right on the money. A lot of Christians who vote Republican have a lot more in common with liberal Democrats and are more our natural allies. Godless liberals like me will never agree with them on seeing abortion as a right to life issue rather than a women’s rights issue. But on other culture war favorites, like gay rights, I think many of them can be brought around, especially a lot of the younger ones who seem to be more interested in social justice than in regulating other people’s sex lives.
Modern liberalism descends as much from the idea that man is made in God’s image as it does from the Enlightenment. If people like me weren’t so arrogant we’d be courting Christians and other believers of good will instead of making fun of them.
JHM
May 31, 2007 at 5:10 pm
I think you may be missing some subtext from Brownback’s NYT oped. His position on evolution, both in substance and language, is very much in line with that of Pope Benedict. The best description I’ve found of Benedict’s views is here
http://nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/word090106.htm
Notice how each of the four bulletpoints that article gives can be found in Brownback’s piece.
(1) Whatever the findings of the natural sciences, they will not contradict Christian faith, since ultimately the truth is one.
From Brownback: “The heart of the issue is that we cannot drive a wedge between faith and reason. I believe wholeheartedly that there cannot be any contradiction between the two. The scientific method, based on reason, seeks to discover truths about the nature of the created order and how it operates, whereas faith deals with spiritual truths.”
(2) As a scientific matter, the evidence for “micro-evolution” seems beyond doubt; the case for “macro-evolution” is less persuasive.
Brownback pointedly mentions his acceptance of microevolution TWICE, making the topic of macroevolution obvious by its omission. I’m actually not sure how you came to the conclusion that he thinks evolution can explain the differences between species or the origin of man… those two lines really stuck out to me.
(3) Evolution has become a kind of “first philosophy” for enlightened thinkers, ruling out the possibility that life has any ultimate meaning. Here Christianity must draw the line.
From Brownback: “If, on the other hand, [evolution] means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it.” Also: “Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.”
(4) On the moral level, the widespread acceptance of evolution as a “first philosophy” is dangerous.
See the quotes above.
The major subtext I got out of that article is that he accepts microevolution and doubts macroevolution, though he’s not dumb enough to explicitly say that. Since he also says he rejects creationism, and therefore presumably accepts the fossil record.
That said, hopefully Brownback’s identification with Catholic values will give him and other Republicans like him lots of common ground with liberals on social and human rights issues, like you said. While the newspaper coverage of Benedict’s trip to South America focused on his denunciation of liberation theology, he has actually frequently said that he appreciates the concern for the poor and powerless that liberation theology advocates, he just doesn’t want people to fall into the trap of thinking that the Church’s mission is to save bodies, as opposed to saving souls. Catholics have long had temperments that in many was align better with the democratic party than with republicans… the main things that keep the clergy, at least, still basically in the GOP camp are abortion and gay marriage.
Greg
June 1, 2007 at 6:27 am
Not that I know the least bit about this above the Scientific American level, but don’t most biologists nowadays think the distinction between micro- and macro-evolution is meaningless at best? Micro-evolution is a term used almost exclusively by creationists.
JHM
June 1, 2007 at 10:01 am
Ok, I think I should clear something up. I do not endorse Brownback’s views on the mechanics of evolution. The micro/macro distinction is silly, I believe the standard Darwinian account of where humans came from, how species evovle etc I just took the Biology AP test, so I know how all this stuff works. I was just using the Brownback Op-Ed for a jumping off point to talk about his other virtues and how we on the left should approach him and those like him.
Matt Zeitlin
June 1, 2007 at 10:26 am
Didn’t mean to imply that you did agree with him, Matt. I think the micro/macro distinction is claptrap too. I just thought you were making his views on that subject out to be much more moderate than they actually are, falling for the rhetoric.
Greg
June 1, 2007 at 11:51 am
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