Irving Babbitt

Many people (including myself) comfort themselves with illusions.

Some people misread F.A. Hayek and think of corporations as examples of spontaneous order where people ‘just get on with things’ – rather than accepting the grim truth that whereas the interaction of various corporations and their customers may produce a spontaneous order, what goes on inside a corporation is (in part) a matter of plans and orders – what Hayek called Taxis rather than Cosmos (indeed Hayek greatly feared that most of the employees of a corporation had little direct contact with the market place).

Other people believe that poverty or unemployment can be dealt with by supporting credit-money expansion – a fallacy refuted so many times, but which refuses to die (for it is such an attractive fallacy).

Very many people believe in democracy. If the majority vote for good people things will get better. And if the majority make a mistake – why then they can ‘throw the rascals out’ and vote for different people.

At least (so the pleasing illusion goes on) this will work if most people are basically good.

In the United States the great critic of democracy is seen as H.L. Mencken (he is even honoured by the predictable attempts to smear him as a racist bigot – which would have come as a surprise to all the black and Jewish writers he helped in the interwar period).

However, I believe that the greatest critic of democracy in the United States was not Mencken. The great journalist often failed to use measured language (his attacks on President Roosevelt failed, in part, because people remembered the wild abuse Mencken had flung at such men as President Coolidge -“Stonehead” and all the rest of it). And Mencken had a terrible illusion of his own. Surely the radical writers he supported, who mocked the common people’s prejudices and the smug traditionalism of the establishment where the men of future enlightenment. Reason would be supported by the hard boiled radical writers and superstitions and mindless tradition would be cast down. Certainly many of the radical writers might be statist in their politics now, but one would could reach them with the use of argument – or if not them then the new radical writers of the future.

It was all an illusion. The ‘rebel’ writers that Mencken championed – men like Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis were powerful writers (Dreiser was my father’s favourite writer). But really they were not rebels at all – they supported the driving movement of their age – hostility to private enterprise and support for collectivism. The writers who carried on in their tradition are not people who tend to be influenced by arguments (if these arguments are in support of private enterprise and are hostile to collectivism) – indeed the ‘radicals’, ‘progressives’, ‘realists’ (call them what you will) are the collectivist establishment of American literature. They have less understanding, their political opinions are further from the truth, that the most ignorant rural ‘good old boys’. Democratic rule by the ‘good old boys’ may be terrible, but democratic rule where the people are “enlightened” by such teachers is far worse.

There was a man who predicted all this and attacked the ruling illusions of his age in rather more measured and reasoned words than H.L. Mencken did, and that man was the person who Mencken regarded as his great enemy – Irving Babbitt.

Babbitt was hated by all ‘progressive’ folk, I do not know (but I suspect) that the very title of one of Sinclair Lewis’ best known works “Babbitt” is a calculated insult. Mr Babbitt is presented (in most of the book) as the typical small town, small minded Republican hostile to such noble things as Labour Unions. Only a stupid man and a coward could be hostile to ‘progressive’ things Mr Lewis shows us – a man like Mr Babbitt (or Irving Babbitt?). And, of course, Irving Babbitt opposed the Adamson Act (the pro union measure under President Wilson) so he must be a beast – a man without ‘imagination’ or a caring heart.

Irving Babbit despised religious rabble rousers such as “Billy Sunday” as much Mecken or Sinclair ‘Elmer Gantry’ Lewis did. But he understood that it was neither popular religion (still less unthinking tradition) that were the great threat to America – the great threat to America was ‘humanitarianism’.

If the voters elect politicians who wish to help people, and if these politicians fail and the voters then elect other politicians who also wish to help people – well that sort of democracy is a certain road to the collapse of civilization.

Certainly Mencken would have despised such statements of Mr George W. Bush as “we must not balance the budget on the backs of the poor” and “medicare is central to a civilized society” as much as Babbitt would have done – but it is in Irving Babbitt (not Mencken) that we see the calm examination of such ideas and the following of the history of these ideas back to their sources (such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau).

The belief that problems can be solved by passing laws (as in Greek city states in their latter years, or during the decline of the Roman Empire) and the belief that poverty can be fought by more government spending are central to modern democracy. It is not the ‘corrupt’ or “wicked” politicians who are the biggest danger – it is the honest, good politicians who are both popular (in that they say, and believe, what the public wish to hear) and ‘well educated’ and successful (in that they accept things that modern universities teach and which people in the outer world, both in government and in private enterprises, assume are true) – it is these ‘idealists’ who are the worst danger.

However, corrupt politicians can not protect us from the tide of destruction. How could they protect us? They may not believe in the beauty of government, but they to wish to win elections – and are unlikely to come up with convincing arguments to change the climate of their times (if such a thing is possible).

Only the ‘saving remnant’ have a chance of protecting civilization or restoring it. The people who have understanding – both of themselves and of the standards of knowledge. If they fail then democracy (or any other political system) is doomed. Votes do not change the laws of reality and a doctrine being popular (either among intellectuals or among the wider population) does not make it true.

Babbitt is often misrepresented. He was presented (by George Santayana) as a representative of the genteel tradition of Massachusetts (Babbitt came from Ohio, had lived in New York City, New Jersey and Wyoming and had taught in Montana and, more importantly, was certainly not ‘genteel’ in any ‘soft’ sense of this word).

Babbitt has been presented both as an unthinking supporter of Christianity and as a Buddhist crank – actually he was neither. Babbitt respected religion (which may indeed put him beyond the pale of ‘modern thought’ – so much for modern thought) – but he was not the unthinking supporter of any set of doctrines. In thinking about religion respectfully, but not with blind acceptance, Babbitt was part of a very old Harvard tradition – a tradition they may even be seen (to an extent) in the foundation of Yale in 1701. One of the reasons given for the foundation of Yale was that Harvard was not firm enough in its support for certain religious doctrines.

Not that religious doctrines were unimportant to Babbitt – nothing could be more insulting to religion (according to him) than the effort to present it as just a way of helping people, ‘serving mankind’. Religion was about the fundamental questions of individual existence and the nature of the universe – or it was about nothing.

Babbitt has also been presented as a conformist who supported ‘traditional standards’ because he wanted a comfortable life in university. This view might be compatible with Babbitt’s attacks on the “professors of our law schools” who were (and are) busy “boring from within” with their doctrine of ‘social justice’, but it harldly fits with Babbitt’s respectful but determined struggle against the policy of the President of Harvard Charles W. Elliot (and the rest of the powers that be) over what the university should teach and how it should teach it.

Lastly there is the silly mistake that Babbitt was simply a party man (a Republican party man) – an idea that is clearly shown to be false by Babbitt’s comment on the Democrat President Grover Cleveland “perhaps the last of our Presidents who was unmistakably in our great tradition”.

Babbitt was not always right. For example his hatred for slavery and his love for the unity of the United States led him to idealise President Lincoln – and whereas I do not support the “Lincoln was the Devil” view of some libertarians Lincoln was a deeply flawed President. Also Babbitt’s hatred for supporters of the French Revolution and of all those who appeal to mob violence led him to play up the bad in Thomas Jefferson and play down the good in him.

To Mencken Babbitt was a puritan and Mencken had a one sided (negative sided) view of such folk. Babbitt may have opposed prohibition – but the “New Humanism” was still just the ‘gloomy humors’. And yes there is something grim about Babbitt’s (and his friend and ally Paul Elmer More’s) conception of man and art. One may not see it much in his student Walter Lippmann, but one can certainly see it in his student (and ardent admirer) T.S. Eliot.

Babbitt is far from a comfortable (or comforting) writer. In Mencken one can see Nietzsche – man makes his own standards. In Babbitt stardards are objective and hard to reach – if you do not reach them you are not ‘going your own way’ you are just a failure as a human being. And yes very many people are failures whose problems are due to a lack of moral responsibility (and some of us know it). This is the mental universe of Aristotle.

Are you a moral agent? Can you make choices? If so then make the choice to get up in the morning and go to work – if you do not like your job then better yourself and get a better one. Develop good habits of dress, hygiene and work – do the right thing (morality is objective too) or die trying.

Do you want to help the poor? Then go and do so (empty the bed pans, feed the hungry children and so on) do not prattle about “serving mankind”. And first make a success of yourself and feed, clothe and educate your children.

No doubt they would both have been horrified by the comparison but I see some similarities between Irving Babbitt and Ayn Rand.

For those interested in Irving Babbitt I would recommend Irving Babbitt: Representative Writings edited and with an introduction by George A. Panichas, University of Nebraska Press 1981.

I first came across Babbit when I was studying Rousseau about 20 years ago (if you are interested by what you see in Representative Writings – then go on to Rousseau and Romanticism), and I remember thinking what Babbitt, the high guardian of classical standards, would think of a semiliterate barbarian like me.

However, whatever Babbitt would think of me, I would still encourage people to read his works.