A National Narrative

If the CEOs of a handful of Fortune 500 companies  wrote an anonymous, frank, and well-reasoned letter saying that they had it too easy, and should have some privileges taken away for the greater good, it would be worth paying some attention. Likewise, when a group of defense experts pen an article about how we spend too much on defense, and not enough on education, infrastructure, and human capital, someone ought to read it.

A National Strategic Narrative is an open letter written by two current members of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff under the pseudonym Mr. Y so that they could offer their honest views on America’s long-run strategic concerns. Mr. Y argues that the US invests far too much public money overreacting to Islamic extremism as if it were an analog to Soviet Communism, and far too little on diplomacy, global economic development, and investment in our young people and the structures that gave America its traditional comparative advantages of invention, optimism, and opportunity. Also, in case you were wondering, Mr. X was already taken by a similar anonymous letter written in 1946, also worth reading.

I’ve often thought about how much greater an existential threat a few thousand Soviet warheads and an economic system that comprised half the world was in comparison to some religious nut with a suitcase full of C-4 and spent uranium, or at the helm of a 747. I’ve often chafed at the notion that, despite the pale shadow of a worse-case scenario we fight today when compared to nearly any time in the 20th century, we are embroiled in a trillion dollar set of wars, a doubled defense budget, and untold billions poured into the coffers of war profiteers. Where is all this money going? What are we really getting for it? Ten years into a defense binge that history will almost certainly judge a colossal waste, only now are we beginning to ask these questions in earnest. Only now.

Somewhere, muddled in the thousands of policy directions we can take as a country, there really is a choice between guns and butter. Is this country a war-fighting apparatus, or does it help foster a reasonable chance for its citizens to prosper? Are we 300 million fearful individuals, or are we the most fearsome mechanism for economic growth and invention the world has ever known? Is there any historical precedent for a country outside the Third World that prospered as it allowed its social protections to wither in exchange for carte blanc to fight? The Strategic Narrative tries to sort these choices out far better than I ever could.

Nobody thinks we can just jettison American global military presence without upending the delicate balance we depend on to keep things running. Everybody can imagine something better. In theory, most of us accept that guns and butter are both in order. In actuality, we spend far too much time in the gun shop, and not nearly enough in the grocery store.

The Strategic Narrative makes the case that in a complex, interdependent world where intellectual competitive pressures are greater than ever, we can’t view security as a matter of having the biggest guns around. Security in a knowledge-driven world means maintaining a country that continues to graduate classes of doctors and engineers. Security in an interdependent world means more diplomacy, more foreign aid and exchange, not less. Security in a competitive world means having the roads, rails, and power lines to keep our team in the race. Security means maintaining free expression and opportunity for as many of us as possible.

The authors of the Strategic Narrative conclude with these words, “Innovation, flexibility, and resilience are critical characteristics to be cultivated if we are to maintain our competitive edge and leadership role in this century. To accomplish this, we must take a hard look at our interagency structures, authorities, and funding proportionalities. We must seek more flexibility in public / private partnerships and more fungibility across departments. We must provide the means for the functional application of development, diplomacy, and defense rather than continuing to organizationally constrain these tools. We need to pursue our priorities of education, security, and access to natural resources by adopting sustainability as an organizing concept for a national strategy. This will require fundamental changes in policy, law, and organization.”

In other words, this isn’t about Christians or Muslims, Socialists or Capitalists. Those categories were variously useful in the era between the Crusades and the 1980s, but no more. We need a fundamentally new way of thinking about who we are and what we need as a people. We need to take a broad, long-term approach to what Americans need to live and thrive in the current realities. The combination of endless wars, callous negligence of working people, and frustrating political dysfunction isn’t a recipe for disaster—it’s a recipe for the slow demise of our way of life.

We need to do better.

The Millennial Manifesto

This is the story of my professional life, ten years out of college, trying to make it through these lean years like everyone else. People my age have the dubious distinction of starting their careers and families in the midst of one major terrorist act, two recessions, three wars, and endless rancor over how our future as a nation will take shape. 

I’m 33 years old. That means I was 23 in 2001, the year I graduated college and entered the job market. My very first job interview as at a temp agency about four blocks from the White House. That was on the morning of Tuesday, September 11. I didn’t work until November.

For my first job, I was employed on a weekly basis with no guarantee of being hired with benefits. I stayed on my dad's coverage for the time being. Employers strung me along, talking of hiring freezes even as they brought other people on full-time.

In late 2002, I got a better job. In fact, it paid a little above average and had great benefits. Then the economy tightened up again, and they used attrition to reduce their workforce, leaving me and my cohort with some pretty hefty responsibilities for that paygrade. Our health insurance premiums went up, and they told us that we’d have some of that increase come out of our paychecks. Every job I’ve had since has taken a growing chunk of my flat paychecks for spiraling premium increases.  

In 2004, I took out a modest set of student loans and went to graduate school in Atlanta. I had some family support and a stipend from a fellowship, so things were going pretty well for us. With the cost of living so low where we were, and the housing market so affordable in comparison to DC, it made a lot of sense to buy a house. So we did in 2005, right before we were married.

In 2007, I finished school and got a job in Atlanta working at a state university. When the economy tightened up again, the university issued a salary freeze, turned down the heat in the building, and limited services around campus. Health insurance premiums continued to increase every year. I switched to a plan with less coverage and more cost sharing.

In 2010, after two years of looking, I got a federal job back in DC. The stability of it seemed like a good idea. We put our house in Atlanta on the market, just as local demand and prices collapsed. In December, moved back to an empty rented house in the DC area, staying with in-laws or on an air mattress. With family help, we moved our belongings north and settled in our new, though temporary home.  Our house in Atlanta is still on the market.

On Friday, April 8, 2011, I thought I'd be out of a job until the government could pass a budget. Even then, there would have been little chance of receiving my back pay. Regardless of shutdowns, my salary is frozen indefinitely.

The work I do is important, even if it doesn't make someone a sizeable profit. The people I know at my job work hard and care about what they do. We just want an honest debate about what's really important to Americans. Like everyone else, we just want to work.

Looking at how things are across the country, I'm grateful that we're doing all right, thanks in large part to family help. It wouldn't be possible otherwise. We’re paying a mortgage on a house with no equity, a rent payment, bills, student loans, groceries, gas and everything else. Most jobs seem to pay the same that they did ten years ago. I don't know what else I can do.  

When will we catch a break?

I’m 33. My wife is 31. We want to start a family soon. I imagine supporting a household in a few years, and I wonder how we’ll make ends meet. I wonder how we’ll afford health care, school for our kids, car purchases, and everything else that's expected. I wonder how we’ll ever be able to retire, even as we contribute the maximum to our plans. I wonder if it's always been like this.

We’ve tried to do everything the right way. We made the investments that everyone told us would pay off. We improved our skills and knowledge to make us more marketable employees. We save money. We’ve avoided serious personal debt. We’ve simplified our lifestyle. We vote and pay taxes. 

Our families love and support us every step of the way. With our backgrounds, work ethics, and a little luck, we have more things going for us than 90 percent of people our age. My story is a relatively good one these days. Life's been fun despite it all. We're still all right.

But when will it be our generation's turn?

Getting Serious about Virtue

Writing for James Fallows’ blog on the Atlantic Monthly website, Kentaro Toyama presents an opening gambit on the discussion of virtue in American culture. What I got out of this piece is that there is a cultural revulsion to discussing virtue here in America. Toyama points to cynicism as the driver behind our reluctance to speak of virtue.

In Toyama’s construct, this cynicism has three manifestations. First, there’s “Biological Cynicism,” or the notion that human nature leaves us no choice but to act the way we do. It’s an evolutionary imperative to fight for what’s ours. Economics presents us with a model of humans as rational, self-interested actors. Second, there’s “Secular Cynicism,” in which many Americans hold a strong distaste for universal morality emerging from a religious background. Despite many attempts, we have always rejected one religious moral construct over another here, and in doing so, have reduced our inclination to speak of morality even on secular terms. Third, there’s “Intellectual Cynicism,” summarized nicely by the author here: “Intellectual cynicism is hard to pinpoint, but I think it's related to the high-school desire to be cool rather than good. The essence of cool is rebellion and subversion, and it's difficult to be either through goodness. No one wants to be a Goody Two-Shoes.”

Reading this article, I’m reminded of my experiences in Japan and India, where the larger social order has no compunctions towards telling you that you’re a bad person if you color outside the lines. A favorite example of mine is the message on the package of moist towelettes that come with every Japanese meal. It says something like, “We Should Wash Our Hands.” Few would quibble with the premise behind this message. It’s a good idea to wash your hands before you eat. But apply Toyama’s concepts of cynicism to this example. Biological Cynicism: I know I should wash my hands, but only because I don’t want to get sick, not because it’s somehow a good idea. Secular Cynicism: Who is this “we” they’re referring to? Are you telling me that cleanliness is next to godliness? Intellectual Cynicism: Well, that’s a patronizing father-knows-best way of putting it. I’ll be dirty just to spite that smug packaging.

I've had all of those reactions.

It’s not to suggest that we wash our hands on a less frequent basis than the Japanese (I have no evidence for or against). Rather, it’s our inability to speak of anything else other than self-interest as a motivator for being clean. At best, a bathroom in an American restaurant might have a state-mandated placard that reads, “Employees must wash hands before returning to work.” There is no given reason why, no sense that it’s the right thing to do. You just do it.  

What virtues remain here? Hard work? Self-reliance? Charity (but only when we feel like it)? To be virtuous in America is to be false, hollow, or sanctimonious. Can one be socially engaged on religious terms? Can we care about the environment without rubbing everyone else the wrong way? Can we employ tactics other than the threat of punishment to impact public behavior? To be sure, shame is far down the list of normative features of American society. We much prefer fines and jail time over social stigma. We resist judgment, preferring the cold punishments of law over social rejection. When caught speeding, it’s much easier for us to brush it off by saying, “the law’s the law” than it is to say, “the officer was right, I was putting other drivers at risk.”

Is it possible for there to be an American morality without the foolhardy zealotry of the Prohibition era, or being “tough on crime” even if it destroys the fabric of our communities? Can we shame people into doing the right thing without it becoming a righteous witch hunt? Can our actions be informed by anything other than raw pragmatism? Can there be other public virtues besides being a hard worker? Can we take care of the poor and sick because it’s the right thing to do and not just for economic reasons?

America needs a new moral discussion. Technocratic calculation or enlightened self-interest won’t cut it. Not in the long run.