The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

First, some background. The movie is based on a popular novel for girls, much like the well-known Princess Diaries. In this story, four teenage girls are preparing to spend their first ever summer apart from each other. Just before they separate, they find a pair of jeans that fits each of them perfectly, despite their obvious differences in size and shape. They agree to share the pants through the summer by mailing them to each other. Each then goes to her summer destination: one to Greece, one to South Carolina, one to Mexico, and one stays home in Maryland. The movie chronicles their experiences throughout the summer.

The script and the directing are generally pretty good. The story is not pedantic; we aren’t always told exactly what is going on, especially when it’s obvious. The solid acting performances help fill in some of the plot and much of the emotion. The photography is very nice. It’s not quite as if you could freeze any frame and print it, but many of the shots are well-composed and thoughtfully orchestrated without seeming “artsy.”

In a brief commentary on the DVD, three of the actresses decide that the movie is superior to many other girly movies because it is more realistic. Without spoiling the plot, I want to address that claim. It is true that the movie deals with more substantive issues than, say, the Princess Diaries. It is also more plausible, though plausibility is rarely a valid standard for a good story. But the actresses say that their movie is better because it doesn’t deal with trivialities like pimples and homework. And yet many teenage girls’ lives are largely consumed by similar trivialities, punctuated by more serious issues. This movie deals with those punctuation marks more than the mundane, which makes it in a sense less realistic. Good stories are not “realistic” in the trivial sense. They don’t trace the mundane.

It is interesting that the girls claim to have been friends for their entire lives, since their mothers took a birthing class together. But their parents never see each other throughout the rest of the film. Perhaps the book is different, but one wonders how four girls from such different backgrounds and having such different tastes could remain friends for so many years. Examining the set pieces in the movie provides some explanation. None of the girls lives in a shack—despite their attempt to seem like ordinary girls, one goes to Greece and the other to Mexico for the summer. Few girls would be able to afford that kind of opportunity.

The movie is supposed to present relevant issues realistically. The issues at stake are serious—divorce, suicide, terminal illness, and love are all directly addressed. But the results are fairly sentimental. It is a feel-good movie, for the most part. Ultimately the solution is unoriginal—be yourself, and enjoy your friends. And yet the friendship aspect gets the most attention, which mostly redeems the story from trite psychobabble. Decisions carry consequences, if relatively minor ones. Wrong actions fail to satisfy desires, and there is forgiveness for wrongdoing. The moral tone is soft and very modern, but not as far off-base as some stories in this genre.

My second thought was that this story wouldn’t make any sense if the characters were boys. Of course, some of the details would have to change, but are their any stories out there about four teenage boys and their friendship? I can’t think of any. I suspect that any such story would devolve into coarse language, rude humor, and over-sexed lust. Or else the “sexual orientation” of the boys would be called into question (though in the case of the girls in this movie, that would be impossible).

Why are there no stories about male friendship? Can boys not be close friends anymore without inviting questions about their motives or descending into crass humor? There two genres that have this kind of male friendship (that I can think of) are war movies and westerns¹ . The problem is that boys have no movies to model good friendship, and rarely look for it in other media. But even other forms of media could be suspect. One could look back at older literature, but unfortunately, even a good friendship there might invite some speculation. Consider even the biblical story of David and Jonathan. There is no indication of any kind of sexual relationship there – indeed, each of them was married to at least one woman – but some contemporary “academics” want to read some kind of illicit connection there.

So I wish that someone could make a movie portraying a close bond between teenage boys similar to the one in Sisterhood. Though the girls’ movie could be better, at least there is something there. If anyone knows of a comparable boys’ movie, I’d love to hear about it, but I suspect that there aren’t many, if any, recent choices.

1. Older westerns. Brokeback Mountain is a famous recent example that suggests even this genre might be up for grabs. back↩

Here’s my question, and the premise of her argument: Does conservatism need religion? In particular, does conservatism need Christianity?

I think there may be several relevant points here, but let me offer some clarifying (to me) observations. First, American conservatism is somewhat different than, say, European conservatism or Islamic conservatism. I don’t think too many people in the West think well of Islamic conservatism–certainly not many in the Republican party. American conservatism is, well, American. It gains much of its ethos from a relatively short history. But that history is profoundly religious–indeed, Christian–for better or worse.

Second, though there are some “conservatives” who claim to be atheistic (e.g. Christopher Hitchens), it’s hard to imagine how they aren’t somewhere being inconsistent. If the conservative “tent” is big enough to house a guy who’s most famous book is “god [sic] is not Great,” I wonder if shrinking the tent might be beneficial. Several commentators have noted that Hitchens–and others like him–are not merely atheistic, they’re anti-theistic.

I’m not sure what Parker is trying to do by marginalizing the Christian aspect of American conservatism. If she’s trying to appeal to those from other religions, fine. But it doesn’t follow that we should write off the Christian side of conservatism to do so.

Her example also doesn’t seem all that strong to me. She cites abortion as a conservative plank that doesn’t require Christianity. To her thinking, you can be an atheist who objects to any arbitrary killing, including killing the unborn. The argument has some merit, but it isn’t clear why arbitrary killing itself is bad. Her example is of a person who thinks of life as continuous in some sense, thereby validating the worth of any living person (?). This is true, but the continuity of life is a pretty vague concept that could be employed to make all sorts of very non-conservative arguments. Christianity offers a very good reason not to kill babies–they’re made in the image of God. But the moral government of God also permits the killing of murderers (by the state), and the ruler-ship of man gives him authority to use the Creation for his purposes since the rest of the world is made “for him.”

My tentative conclusion is that Ms. Parker’s fundamental premise is flawed. I have a number of other reasons for thinking that American conservatism needs religion, and her argument isn’t working as a credible counterargument for me.

1. Race was an issue in the campaign. As much as people try to say otherwise, it mattered. I am genuinely glad for black people that this is so. It affirms what they’ve been trying to say for over a hundred years–that their skin color doesn’t make them less important. But now that we’ve elected a black man into the White House, the “American is racist” argument will lose a lot of its clout. Of course, those who really believe it will find some way to keep it alive, but I don’t think it will be nearly as persuasive.

Further, Obama will ultimately prove the equality of the “races” when he makes a mistake and has to pay the consequences. Just as the media’s treatment of Hillary Clinton during the primaries proved that women have an equal right to criticism, a strong opposition to Obama’s policies will show that black people really do get treated the same way as white people.

2. Campaign finance whining might go away. Obama raised an enormous amount of money. If McCain had raised that much and won, the media would have accused him of buying the presidency (and in a sense, he would have). But they won’t criticize Obama for his financial success. In the future, Republicans should feel free to raise as much as they can (legally), since any media criticism of their success would be obviously disingenuous. I realize that the media’s ability to spin things to fit their narrative will still be powerful, but I think the “buying the election” epithet will lose some of its power.

3. Republicans should know how not to run a campaign. McCain’s campaign was pretty sorry. He survived on people’s hesitancy about Obama and a few spectacular successes — the “surge,” Gov. Palin (a mixed blessing, more below). His response to other issues, e.g. the economic “crisis,” was pretty bad. It took a plumber from Toledo and a slip from Obama to focus the message on the obvious. McCain and Co. were just flopping around, and it hurt them. In fact, McCain and Palin never really explained any of their positions very well.
Voters reminded the GOP that ideas do matter, and if you can’t express them cogently, you won’t win.

4. A young rising star in the GOP got national facetime. Gov. Palin has been a touchstone for the debate within the GOP about the party’s direction. She represents one vision of Republicanism (I think the more conservative side). It was nice that she could be introduced to the country to remind young conservatives that they can actually go places in politics, and that people really do care about conservative values. To be sure, certain aspects of her candidacy were badly handled, and she may not have been ready to be president (I’m not sure that Obama is either). But she could represent a future GOP that a lot of its younger members would like. She may not be a good candidate for president, even in the future, but her success should remind the movers and shakers that they can’t ignore the right.

5. Conservatives aren’t whining. When Democrats lost in 2000 and 2004, there was lots of griping about all the unfair things that happened. Most conservatives are pretty prosaic about this campaign. Many see it as a deserved punishment for a party that has behaved badly. Further, they think it proved that moderate Republicanism doesn’t work very well against “moderate” Democrat-ism. The introspection may be very healthy.

Some not-so-good things and observations:

1. Senator Obama ran on a campaign of “hope and change.” He never really bothered to be more specific about the kind of change or what we should hope for. His success in vagueness prompts a couple of points, any or all of which may be true.
a. Americans don’t care about the meaning of words. They think emotionally; which makes no sense, but I think it captures the sentiment. In reading the various analyses of the campaign, both during and after, I was struck by the freqency of aesthetic language and imagery. Obama’s campaign was (perhaps intentionally) cast as a artistic event. And people today generally think that art is something that you interact with emotionally–and without thought. They don’t care about the meaning of art; indeed, they may think that it has no meaning. Obama capitalized on this sentimentality to propel his campaign.
b. Americans were so sick of Washington that they were willing to “vote for change” regardless of the nature of the change. When people don’t trust the current government (and it was perceived as Republican), “change” is automatically a powerful idea. I think voters were so disillusioned with Republicans that they were willing to give nearly anything else a chance. Obama essentially said “I’ll do things differently.” And voters said “Go for it.” They may have thought they had nothing to lose. It couldn’t get that much worse. (It can, but it’s hard to convince people that it could be that much worse.)

2. The mainstream media might as well be an extension of the Democrat party. There are a few journalists who actually did a little journalism, but for the most part, reporters were incredibly lopsided. In this campaign, no one could accuse journalists of educating anyone, or even of being “fair and balanced.” The public’s ignorance of relevant issues (like economics, foreign policy, etc.) permitted Obama to run his vague campaign, but the media never tried to inform the American voter about the relevant points in the discussion. They vacillated between gross simplification and technical jargon/academia-ese. This certainly played in Obama’s favor, since he appeared to cater to many people’s rudimentary understanding. His unclear positions allowed voters to project their ideas onto his without damage, so his ideas looked like their own. This is not a good thing, and the media could have helped prevent it.

All said, an Obama presidency may be good for the country in a couple of ways. If he governs like Clinton, we’ll do all right. If he governs like Hoover, the economy probably won’t do well. But as Robert Bork has observed, one thing that would help restore religious sentiment to our culture would be deep depression. It’s just that economic depression isn’t likely to win many voters. Obama’s power is highly derivative. We would do well to remember that if he tries to make waves, that doesn’t mean he controls the oceans.

Over at least the last two generations, and particularly the last two decades, America has enjoyed, yea championed, the vices of Gluttony, Sloth, Lust, and Greed. Look at the news stories that tell what Americans are complaining about now. They resent the loss of their luxuries–those things that they had no right to but have pursued to excess. They dislike the fact that excess, combined with laziness, eventually leads to want.

Perhaps I should say “we.”

But now they have a savior. He promises them relief from the loss of their pleasures. He offers ease from the hardship that they have brought on themselves. He claims that they need not suffer for their own sins.

How does he do this? By telling us that our previous sins are not our responsibilty and by calling us to Pride in our own worthiness, Envy of those who have succeeded, and Wrath against people who expect us to take care of ourselves.

In short, he tells us that we have not sinned enough.

This is the job of a “community organizer” (probably better labeled “agitator”). Stanley Kurtz at National Review has documented Senator Obama’s positions and activities. Obama’s MO basically motivates sinning people to sin more so that they can keep sinning. He wants to remove the law of sowing and reaping. Unfortunately, his opponent doesn’t clearly disagree.

Speaking of sowing and reaping, the American public has long elected politicians who have stayed in power by appealing to the basest instincts of their constituents. It works to do so. But the state shapes the people, so as the politicians themselves are vicious, the people become so too. And then the people turn around and elect more vicious politicians. Many polls and news stories suggest that Americans have lost their faith in their government. Considering the kind of government we have, it’s about time they stopped believing.

Government is not our salvation. Usually it tends merely to delay the consequences of vice. Now, more than ever, our government is actively and unashamedly trying to absolve the sins of the people. And the people are poised to elect someone who will add more sins, not remove them.

Salvation requires repentance and faith. With a faithless government that doesn’t demand repentance, it’s hard to imagine how government could do anything but make things worse. But then, that might be a good thing. The sooner people remember the law of sowing and reaping, repent, and put their faith in something more substantial and transcendent, the better off we’ll be.

I don’t want to bash the family at the beginning, and I wouldn’t wish economic hardship on them. But if their difficulty is limited to fewer snacks (or rationing them out over a week), I confess that I’m less sympathetic. In fact, the suggestion that this is the kind of economic hardship going on is insulting. It insults both the viewers’ intelligence and those who really are getting hurt by the downturn. Sure, things aren’t as smooth-going as they were, but at least the family in the video is frankly a long way from starvation.

I think the average person out there knows full well that this family isn’t getting hurt too badly. Are all these plans Senator Obama suggests intended to help out these kind of people at the expense of those of us who are little closer to subsistence living? I fear so. But the pretense of the video is spectacular. The remainder of the infomercial doesn’t get much better.

Part 2 of the infomercial

Part 3

Part 4

Is it just me, or was the live portion of this video kind of odd? He returned to the “hope and change” lines from early in the campaign. If he had clearly discussed policy in the previous 25 minutes, that might have been one thing. But instead we got a list of sob stories that seemed a little contrived and some vague promises to fix their problems. We want to know how he’s going to fix the problems — but once we know, we might not like it. I guess the question is whether the hope and change mantra will survive until Tuesday.

The whole discussion is silly. Experience is important, but we need to understand what experience we’re talking about. Usually people compare her to Biden or McCain and point out her relative youth and provincial attitudes. In reality, if she should be counted out for not measuring up to their tenure, then the top of the opposite ticket is out of luck too.

But what about this whole “experience” thing in politics anyway? Is experience really necessary? Gov. Palin’s critics seem to be equating experience with knowledge. She supposedly hasn’t been around long enough and therefore doesn’t know enough. But does experience always lead to knowledge?

I say no. And here are three arguments:

First, the kind of experience matters. It’s one thing to get to sit in on a board meeting of a major corporation. You might learn a lot. But it’s quite another thing to run the meeting. No amount of watching can fully prepare you to actually run the thing. Likewise, many Americans have the “experience” of watching politics (filtered by their televisions). But relatively few could actually do what politicians do (or ought to do). Teachers know that teaching a subject requires far greater understanding than just soaking it up in a chair. We can over-emphasize the value of “hands-on” experience, but we cannot deny that doing is not the same as watching. Governor Palin is the only candidate with actual political executive experience. Does that make her qualified? Not necessarily, but her experience of running things is somewhat different than the others.

Second, the content of the experience matters. We could find some aged musician with lots of frequent flier miles, but he wouldn’t necessarily be a reliable source on foreign policy. (Then again, he might be.) If a crime boss ran for political office, he might be able to claim lots of executive experience, but it isn’t quite the executive experience that most people are looking for in a leader.

Third, and most important, experience doesn’t necessarily produce knowledge. We could take a behaviorist tack and claim that, after a while, everyone can be trained to do certain things. But this is not the kind of knowledge we want in a leader. We want someone who will learn from mistakes (both theirs and others’). Moreover, we want someone who can learn without experience–i.e. by direct instruction¹ . When someone persists for years in foolishness, they probably aren’t qualified for public office. This would be a problem for Senator Biden. His weath of “experience,” particularly in foreign policy, has managed to land him on the wrong side of nearly every major foreign policy issue in the last decade. Further, he doesn’t seem to have learned that when he doesn’t know what to say, he shouldn’t say anything at all. For all his “experience,” his knowledge, judgment, and wisdom are certainly in question.

Governor Palin needs more knowledge, as we should expect. (She is, after all the governor of one of the states furthest from Washington D.C., and governors aren’t always in the “need-to-know” loop of national security and foreign policy.) But as I anticipate tonight’s debate, I hope Gov. Palin will have an opportunity to demonstrate that she learns quickly and that she can draw on the wealth of knowledge among her advisors. If she does so, she will further convince me that the media doesn’t have a clue what they’re talking about. She can’t attack “experience” per se, since her running mate is running on that very thing (in an earlier post I suggested that this might not be all good). But she can attack Biden’s knowledge and judgment, and I hope she does.

It would be great to have someone with real experience in the White House again.

1. Consider how often the book of Proverbs connects wisdom, understanding, and instruction with “hearing.” back↩

I decided to try something. I pulled up a word tree of Obama’s convention speech and one of McCain’s speech. I then searched for the word “I” in each speech.  The results intrigue me. McCain uses “I” more often, but it is most frequently followed by “was” and “know.” Obama most frequently said “I will.”

Obama and McCain's use of "I"

This seems to bolster the sense that Obama can say little about his past that wouldn’t disqualify him for public office, and that McCain has had a storied past with lots of varied experience. Obama’s emphais on the future may be not only politically shrewd, but practically necessary. Further, his characterization of McCain as a relic of the past seems justified by McCain’s own rhetoric.

There is the problem, however, of politicians saying “I will” (or “I will not”). McCain will need to get away from his historical narrative at some point, but the alternative is not Obama’s grand declarations of future accomplishments. Politicians promise much during campaigns, but the return on their promises is usually pretty poor.

I think a stronger rhetorical stance for a presidential candidate would emphasize statements of moral fact. If Senator McCain wanted to highlight future policies, but do so without making promises that political necessity might later overturn (George H.W. Bush, anyone?), he could cast his ideas this way: “We should ________,” or, “We ought to _______.” By doing so, he doesn’t actually promise anything, but instead identifies the “right” course of action.

Of course, McCain may be prone to overdo this kind of rhetoric. William McGurn and John Fund both recently noted in the Wall Street Journal that McCain already tends to shoot from the hip for moral judgments. If he’s going to adopt the rhetoric of moral principle (as opposed to Obama’s “ruthless pragmatism“), he needs to decide what he thinks–or at least what he wants people to think that he thinks–and stick to it.  I think he would be much more convincing.

Sarah Palin with family (TimesOnline UK)

I think there were at least a half dozen specific references to “motherly” issues in her speech last night. But they didn’t seem forced or invented the way you’d expect from someone like Hillary Clinton or even Cindy McCain. Her comment about special needs children probably won the Republican ticket a few hundred thousand votes on its own. But to reinforce her comments about motherhood, her family played their parts perfectly. Her youngest daughter is delightfully cute, but did you see how she followed her mom around on stage after the speech? And that her mom actually paid attention to her? I don’t think people should worry about her ability to be a mother and a VP.

Daniel Henniger of the Wall Street Journal had a great piece today that addresses some of these issues. Mrs. Palin is far more convincing as an American mom than nearly any other woman in politics.

An MSNBC show this morning also included some talk about her appeal to mothers. Generally, the “oracles of political wisdom” thought she’d appeal very strongly to moms. Of course, if they had said otherwise, they’ve have lost what shreds of credibility they still have.

Populism

It’s nearly axiomatic in American politics that in order to get elected, you have to play the “average Joe” card frequently. The anti-elitist strain runs through nearly every dimension of the culture (with the exception perhaps of academia and the mainstream media–both of whom are, of course, elitist). However, most candidates aren’t actually drawn out of the unwashed masses of American society. There is a “ruling class” in America and most of our politicians come from it. That’s not a bad thing necessarily, but it doesn’t play well on “Main Street USA.”

I don’t recall that John McCain has really claimed that he’s just an average guy. In fact, his campaign has been largely about being a very non-average guy. I suggest that some of his success is because of this very fact.

It might, then, be interesting to compare Obama’s populism with Sarah Palin’s. Here were see another important distinction. Some of Obama’s story sounds like typical America, whereas Palin’s sounds like normal America.

Let me explain.

American society is hardly a moral paradise. There are lots of bad things that happen. And we all know it. I think most people would agree that single-parent families aren’t a good thing. Serial polygamy (i.e. divorces) is common–again, probably not a good thing. Parents effectively neglect their children for various reasons. Obama comes from a somewhat disadvantaged slice of society. So do a lot of other people. He is in some ways “typical” of his culture, perhaps even of contemporary America. But few people would argue that the culture is a good one.

Mrs. Palin’s family (several generations worth) includes some of the same negative elements, but in a radically different way. She represents “normal” America–the society that we wish we could have and that we expect. Now, many aren’t sure that the conservatives own the path to normal America, but Mrs. Palin’s successes are very persuasive. What woman wouldn’t want the opportunity to “make a better” world for her kids, however limited the opportunity may be? What woman wouldn’t want kids who love her (and each other) and a husband who lovingly labors to provide those opportunities?

Mrs. Palin appeals to the normal American woman. Not the academic feminist or the media darling, but the everyday working mom. And she can tell real stories about it without omitting important details or sounding elitist (“You just wouldn’t believe how expensive it is to have the limo pick up the kids from school each day”).

(Addition Friday morning: I note that I slightly pre-empted Peggy Noonan on this idea of “normal.” I suppose it’s good for my ego to make an observation similar to hers all by myself. )

Public Speaking

The gut reaction from the Democrats (and I’ll include the media) was that her speech wasn’t all that great. After the dust had settled and the pundits had time to review the tapes and move past their knee-jerk feelings, they’ve admitted that her speech was pretty awesome.

It was.

There are a few women in public life (and some that I personally know too) that I really wouldn’t want to debate in public. It’s not necessarily that I think I’d lose every time, but these girls are smart, quick-witted, and won’t hide behind their own skirts if the debate gets tough. I hope Joe Biden has a good debate coach, because the VP debate won’t be anything like the floor of the Senate or even a committee hearing. He’ll have to walk the knife’s edge between appearing misogynistic and getting creamed.

She’s sarcastic, but remarkably gracious about it. I didn’t come away thinking that she was being mean. I thought she was funny. Part of what made it funny was that it was true.

I don’t think the McCain camp will need to shelter her from the press for the next few weeks. I hope they can shelter her kids–though they shouldn’t have to. But I don’t think a serious discussion on relevant issues will be over her head. Besides, how many serious policy questions have they asked Obama anyway? Let her continue to show that the GOP VP candidate is more qualified to lead than the Democratic presidential candidate.

Religion

Mrs. Palin’s speech didn’t include many references to religion, but there were a few. She only mentioned God twice (probably too often for some). Early in the speech she had a line that sounded a lot like the book of Ecclesiastes: “there’s a time for politics and a time for leadership, a time to campaign and a time to put our country first.” Later, she commended governing with a “servant’s heart.” Hmm. Put that into practice in Washington.

I’m not sure the Democrats will be well-served to attack her Christianity. You would think that someone of influence in the campaign would remember that the vast majority of voting Americans go to church. And a lot of them don’t take kindly to all-out assaults on people who appear to sincerely share their beliefs.

Ok. I’ll be done for now. It appears I’m coming up on 1100 words, which I’m sure is taxing your patience. I may continue some of my bedroom punditry tomorrow or as other things develop in the campaign.

As always, I welcome your comments.