Who needs democrats? Seriously, I just met up with my friend Ben N. from SAIS, who is passing by Dublin, and we had a few in a local pub. He is one of the two smart republicans I know (the other being Kim) but found him to be radically moderate all of a sudden about a great many things. He is against the Iraq war, outright, and has been from the start. He’s against the recall vote in California (direct democracy being bad), nodded at my lamenting the rise of dynastic democracy of the USAfter the Bushes, watch for Hillary in 2008, though she might have to run against Jeb., and had we ventured into the US budget, we would probably have found ourselves in full agreement.
Where were the days of our stubborn idealism? I remember one pitched battle in the kitchen of our flat on Via Irnerio, in Bologna, about whether European or American democracy was superior, which degenerated into call and response along the lines of “is so, is not, is so…” Now we’d probably be at pains to point out the good parts of our respective democratic heritages. I certainly do about the US. On occasion.
I think I know where Ben’s mellowing has come from. He was accompanied by his lovely democrat wife, whom I hadn’t met before, and it is clear that in this bipartisan marriage, Ben has been doing some political migrating. I’m glad he has, because it gives me the necessary empirical evidence to push a hunch I’ve had to the level of hypothesis. His marriage is the third involving overtly political friends of mine that has manifested a lurch towards the political leanings of the woman in the relationship.
For example, Eurof, who used to fall asleep clutching a dog-eared copy of Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, or who in a moment of drunken sincerity proclaimed his sexual attraction to Margaret Thatcher — this very same Eurof now entertains conspiracy theories about why Greece is no longer a superpower. He believes French foreign policy is enlightened, for God’s sake, and this coming from a Brit. Clearly, he is in love with a GreekEurof is on holiday in Greece at the moment, where they invented the internet 2000 years ago along with everything else, but lost it, so he will not be able to comment here just this minute..
Kim and Matthew, Oregon Gothic, 1998
Meanwhile, Matthew’s trajectory has been the opposite. He hailed from a solid middle class North London Labourite family, and his main stab at rebellion involved making bad postmodern student movies at Oxford. In Bologna, he dabbled in anarcho-revolutionary publishing, and was certainly not above such typical propaganda activities as spreading misinformation about revolutionary rivals. All this came to a screeching halt when he met Kim. Kim owned lots of guns. Now Matthew owns guns. Now Matthew wants to kick ass in Iraq. Enough said.
How to test my hypothesis, so that it can aspire to scientific rigor? Hoping for divorces and observing any shifts would clearly be unethical. Perhaps in the future we should do a better job of chronicling our stated political leanings, so that we can be held to account when we venture off the Shining Path and down the wedding aisle. Oh, that’s what blogs are for.
perhaps it also has something to do with age. I mean a type of correction exercise occurs as people pass middle age and they slowly shuffle towards the other end of the political spectrum. My Father, who was a cut and dried Liberal voter has slowly mellowed and has become more forgiving and liberal(note little “l”) in his old age whereas my Mum, at one stage a true bleeding heart is showing disturbing right wing tendencies…
Where to start. Let me count the ways. No, no, I promised myself. No more pointless, uninformed political wrangling. Boring, tedious. But you started it, silly boy, and now I’m going to have to break my vow. It pains me. It hurts, really, it does. Oh dear. Perhaps I just focus one element: YOU’RE WRONG. How does that sound? Well, wrong in one key area, duped by my attempts to be a nice guy a decade or so ago. If anything my politics have moderated a lot, and in a good way, from the rather nasty high Tory I postured at being during my rebellious teens. (Not all rebellion has to be to the left). Just one example: at around the age of 14, I used to advocate keeping Mandela in jail because, you know, he was a terrorist and a threat to law and order.
Whatever you think I am now, and you’re probably wrong there, too, it’s a good deal less obnoxious than it used to be. I just hid it well during graduate school.
Oh, and thanks for including me on the list of smart Republicans you know.
Assuming Stefan’s observations are accurate doesn’t mean there is a causal relationship. People experiment and try different ideas but eventually they settle into a personal equilibrium. University years see us at our most experimental as we learn about alternatives and our young hearts burn with resentment at the injustices of the traditional order. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; few of us at that age have the experience that sometimes leads to wisdom, or at least compassion. I did my Ayn Rand libertarian thing and I picked up a few values that I still admire, but over time came to reject the cold arrogance underlying much of her philosophy. No one can enjoy a year in Italy and really be a libertarian anyway, although being a libertine is another matter. Perhaps rebellion simply leads to resignation, although I like to think of it more as a testing of memes and ultimately confirming their durability. Whatever the hell that means. I don’t think Matthew or Eurof or the rest have lapsed into a cynical resignation, either, but are affirming the core principles that were embedded in their psychic DNA all along. In other words, it’s not necessarily the wife that changes the man; it could be that the man, in choosing his wife, expresses himself (and vice versa).
actually the greeks still have the internet, so that’s just another way in which you are WRONG about me too.
i am still a hayekian, more accurately popperian, and were you to have listened to me at all you would have realised hayek can also be rudely adopted and misrepresented by the left. i don’t think frog FP is particularly enlightened, just a lot smarter than the anglo saxon one at the moment. as for CIA involvement in the general’s coup in greece, that’s not a conspiracy theory but a matter of record.
i used to be a maoist at school. i would in fact count myself as a moderate republican, were i able to vote in US elections. matthew, you are not a smart republican.
well, as purely a causal matter, i must be.
1. kim is a smart republican
2. kim an i think alike on most matters (except for her sillier stances on, say, international law)
3. therefore…
i have in my posession video tape of you, mostly naked, cavorting inelegantly. be careful what you say.
Something that Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree on: burning nealry naked video footage of Eurof. See, on the really imnportant issues, we’re all the same underneath.
Matthew, aping opinions held by others does not make you smart, even if those opinions are the “correct” ones. On the contrary, it makes you sound derivative and unoriginal. And the fact that you think copying someone’s opinions makes you smart is the clearest proof that you are not.
Your logic also rests on the assumption that kim actually is a smart republican. Smart she is in general, and cute too, but whether the part of her that is a republican is smart is at least unproven, believing as she apparently does that the Bush administration is not an international embarrassment, and that as she put it recently in reference to iraq and US policy in general, “everything’s going wonderfully well!”
As for the naked eurof footage, you will not gag me like your kind did democracy in Greece!
I think, in fact, you are the ape in this matter. Who said anything about copying? We both think it’s an oil tanker but came to that opinion through some kind of basic process of deduction (i.e., noticing that it is, indeed, an oil tanker). It’s possible I really think it’s a trireme but am mimiking you because you’re really cool and I’d like to be like you. But unlikely. And I think it was Stefan who called Kim a smart Republican, which means it must be correct. And, lastly, on your suggestion, I’ve turned over the Naked Eurof Tape to the CIA.
i am still a hayekian, more accurately popperian, and were you to have listened to me at all you would have realised hayek can also be rudely adopted and misrepresented by the left. i don’t think frog FP is particularly enlightened, just a lot smarter than the anglo saxon one at the moment. as for CIA involvement in the general’s coup in greece, that’s not a conspiracy theory but a matter of record.