Full transcribed lecture here. (updated link)
So are we drifting to a more “European” lifestyle in America? Should we question…if not resist….such a trend?
“I have two points to make. First, I will argue that the European model is fundamentally flawed because, despite its material successes, it is not suited to the way that human beings flourish–it does not conduce to Aristotelian happiness. Second, I will argue that twenty-first-century science will prove me right.”
Murray is quite libertarian, and he outlines what he dislikes about the European model on a recent visit to Sweeden:
“In every town was a beautiful Lutheran church, freshly painted, on meticulously tended grounds, all subsidized by the Swedish government. And the churches are empty. Including on Sundays. Scandinavia and Western Europe pride themselves on their “child-friendly” policies, providing generous child allowances, free day-care centers, and long maternity leaves. Those same countries have fertility rates far below replacement and plunging marriage rates. Those same countries are ones in which jobs are most carefully protected by government regulation and mandated benefits are most lavish. And they, with only a few exceptions, are countries where work is most often seen as a necessary evil, least often seen as a vocation, and where the proportions of people who say they love their jobs are the lowest.”
As Murray suggests, the prevailing European secular habit of mind (which shuns overt religious faith) has also transposed a lot of Christian metaphysics (and a lot Marxist/Communist leftist thought) into the modern European state. Many religious values continue of course, but are also, in part, maintained by that state. That state, in turn, can limit much dynamism and freedom we take for granted here in the U.S.:
“The problem is this: Every time the government takes some of the trouble out of performing the functions of family, community, vocation, and faith, it also strips those institutions of some of their vitality–it drains some of the life from them.”
This isn’t a bad point to make. I would also agree with Murray that many many people busy importing such influences to America know not what they do (especially prescient right now, during the economic crisis). I suppose he’s also implying that despite our depth of religious idealism, our constitution is able to handle it in its pursuit of the negative ideals of life, liberty and happiness.
He also suggests that Europe can’t keep this old model going:
“The European model can’t continue to work much longer. Europe’s catastrophically low birth rates and soaring immigration from cultures with alien values will see to that.”
There are facts here, but they are quite arguable and his statement is full of rightist sentiment. It remains to be seen what will happen in Europe, mostly by Europeans.
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What I think most animates Murray as a social scientist and thinker is a libertarian political philosophy that finds greater influence in say, the Vienna Circle, and economic thinkers such as Friedrich Hayek and Von Mises than in the standard models of social science. For this, he should be praised for this independence of mind and contrarianism. He’s always fighting against the current.
When it comes to (S)cience though, I’m wary of people who claim to have it on their side.
It took the genius of Galileo and Newton, among others, to overturn the predominantly Aristotelian (excessively defended by the church) scientific models of the day. So, I don’t think it’s just Aristotle we should strive to model ourselves after…
—though I think Murray’s point really is to wrest happiness from the standard models of social science and current social trends that point Europeward:
“The drift toward the European model can be slowed by piecemeal victories on specific items of legislation, but only slowed. It is going to be stopped only when we are all talking again about why America is exceptional, and why it is so important that America remain exceptional. That requires once again seeing the American project for what it is: a different way for people to live together, unique among the nations of the earth, and immeasurably precious.”
Something to think about, though I’m wary of the doomsaying.
See Also: Murray has more here in the Washington Post. He argues that there is a deeper philosophical, but mostly, scientific influence that will change the social sciences in the next 50 years or so, and thus, public policy.
Also On This Site: Gene Expression On Charles Murray: Does College Really Pay Off?…Charles Murray In The New Criterion: The Age Of Educational Romanticism
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