To my shame I have never read nor heard of Michael Novak before reading his book, Writing from Left to Right: My Journey from Liberal to Conservative. The title caught my eye at the library and the clever illustration, of a pen with ink shading from blue to red, prompted me to take it home.
Novak is a Catholic and deeply interested in social issues and universal human rights. He was the United States ambassador to the `UN Commission on Human Rights in the early 1980s and the follow up meeting in Bern, Switzerland on Human Contacts. He believes (as do I) that we humans need economic liberty, political liberty, and liberty of spirit.
He was raised a die hard Democrat who believes his party has lost its way. No long does it seek to contain government power to allow individuals the freedom to pursue their own way; it now sees itself as the main, in fact, the only solution. Novak instead sees government as one option, one building block of community, among many, and the “other mediating structures” of family, church, associations, schools.
Among the best sections of Writing from Left to Right was near the end, dealing with his goals and beliefs about community. As Novak points out, no one person or group or political party is always right or always wrong. He calls for true discussion, dialogue, listening, to breech the gaps among groups. “The worst thing is to let ourselves imagine that our side is the side of the angels, and that the other side is the side of stupid and evil spirits. It….is better to imagine that the other side may be in some part right. That…forces us to think..to look at problems in more than just one way.”
In his view, the “most pressing crisis” deals with the growing number of poor. Novak points out that poverty is more than statistics, that when you examine who is poor today, who was poor 10 years ago, why they are poor, that you realize that first, few people start out poor and stay poor their entire lives. Lost in the worry about “inequality” is the fact that people do move between wealth tranches. That said, there are poor among us. Second, Novak points out that an equal evil is that of covetousness and envy. Of course current politics feed this and make those who are envious feel it is justified. And third, that the problem needs more than yet another federal government program.
In Novak’s mind, true community is built not on the basis of government, but on families, on genuine caring for one another, for associations. He sees four main weaknesses with the current model where the federal government is the first choice for a solution:
- It’s expensive
- Its spending is disproportionate to results
- It generates self-defeating incentives and consequences
- Relying on large government weakens all other social strengths.
The first 75% of this book was mostly new to me, bringing a fresh viewpoint to events of the 1960s-80s. Novak is not preachy nor does the intent of the book seem to be to convert the reader to his viewpoint. He has cogent arguments for his beliefs and is refreshingly honest in pointing out mistakes and inconsistencies in his and others’ thinking. Some of this first section was a bit tedious. As Writing from Left to Right moved into the 1990s and his observations on the current practice of politics and what passes today for clear thinking, I enjoyed it more.
I dislike broad terms like “Left”, “Liberal”, partly because they encompass such a tiny fraction of someone. And also because the inherent meanings have changed over time. A “liberal” in the 1960s or 1970s might not necessarily be a “Democrat” today. This is the path that Novak took and he shares with his readers his reasons and his journey. I recommend it.
