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A new proposal for a (fairly) universal child allowance opens this week’s issue—followed by material on the role of home, the elites, and translating a 20th-century French masterpiece.
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Family Money: This week, Utah Senator Mitt Romney proposed the Family Security Act, which would pay parents a monthly stipend for each kid ($350/month for ages 4 and under and $250/month for ages 5 to 17). It would pay for this spending by rolling back certain tax breaks and cutting some income-support programs (the idea being that the universal child allowance would more than make up for those other benefits).
Senator Romney’s proposal generated a lot of debate. At Niskanen, Samuel Hammond and Robert Orr mounted a philosophical argument on behalf of a universal child allowance. Dylan Matthews had some positive words about Romney’s plan, as did Matt Bruenig. Gladden Pappin has long been a proponent of direct cash-benefits to families, so he was pleased by the Family Security Act, too.
But others disagreed with Romney’s plan. Mike Lee and Marco Rubio—who have been leading voices for expanding tax benefits for working families—were critical of the proposal: “we do not support turning the Child Tax Credit into what has been called a ‘child allowance,’ paid out as a universal basic income to all parents. That is not tax relief for working parents; it is welfare assistance. An essential part of being pro-family is being pro-work.” AEI’s Scott Winship raised similar concerns.
Romney’s proposal sits at the intersection of many key debates in policy right now: how to support families, the role of work incentives, the possibility of universal income guarantees (UBI, etc.). Those are the kinds of debates that need to happen, and policy proposals (like Romney’s) help prompt those debates—however they’re resolved. Forming the subtext of those debates are competing ideas about the contours of human nature, the structure of the modern economy, and what society should look like.
Related: Galen Druke talks possible futures for the GOP with Ramesh Ponnuru, Kristen Soltis Anderson, and Henry Olsen.
Another tax-reform proposal from Patrick T. Brown at the Joint Economic Committee.
Law and Liberty’s forum this month is about the legacy of Christopher Lasch’s The Revolt of the Elites. Rod Dreher kicks it off:
His most important insight was the widening gulf between economic and cultural elites and the mainstream of American life, whose moral codes and traditions they hold in contempt. The book’s title refers to the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset’s The Revolt of the Masses, a 1930 volume analyzing the rise of mass democracy, and what he regarded as the decadence of the new personality type coming to dominate society. Ortega was no aristocrat; in fact, he was a leader among Spanish republicans. But he was also an intellectual who feared that mass man would create a society in which all cultural and ideational hierarchies would be replaced by mere appetite. “Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made,” wrote Ortega.
Lasch inverted Ortega’s thesis, accusing American elites of rebelling against standards, and thus debilitating culture. Lasch’s targets were “upper middle class liberals” who, in his view, better exemplified the self-satisfaction, incuriosity, “radical ingratitude,” and hatred for anything not itself that Ortega found in mass man.
Helen Roy says we need to recover the value of the home (and the person): “To return to the family in the fullest sense means to be fully present in the sanctuary of the soul, and in more completely relying on each other once more, to regard the place and the people therein as completely indispensable. By restoring dignity to the irrational aspects of home, we restore the soul of the nation.”
Zoom Gloom: A new study by Emily Towner, Danielle Ladensack, Kristen Chu, and Bridget Callaghan suggests that online interaction is not a substitute for embodied life:
There was clear evidence for lower well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic in emerging adults characterized by large increases in depressive symptoms, and large decrements in happiness and social satisfaction post-pandemic onset. In line with expectations, a robust positive association was seen between household size (an index of objective social contact) and well-being. However, contrary to expectations, there was no association between the frequency of virtual social interactions and well-being. More empirical evidence is required before “virtual” remedies are prescribed as a panacea to replace in-person interactions during COVID-19.
Yuval Levin and Leon Kass discuss Kass’s latest book on reading Exodus—and the role of duty, moral purpose, and political narratives.
More narratives: Steven Smith (who also has a new book coming out) argues that certain variants of cosmopolitanism and nationalism have drawbacks; he writes that a third way is needed, one that affirms both ethical commitments and a love of place.
Cosmopolitanism and nationalism are opposites, but in different ways they are both at odds with patriotism. Cosmopolitanism is a noble idea but a peculiarly loveless disposition, indifferent to the ties of loyalty and affection that bind people to their home and their country. The citizen of the world stares down on human affairs as if from a star; from this elevated perspective, such passions appear far less important than universal justice. In the 20th century, Communism was a cosmopolitan doctrine, dedicated to replacing classes, ethnicities and nations with a single classless society. Needless to say, it didn’t create a brotherhood of all mankind but some of the most violent tyrannies in history.
Nationalism, too, begins with ideals—that cultural differences should be celebrated, that every people has a legitimate desire to be strong and respected. But it almost inevitably becomes an ideology of grievance and resentment, dividing the world into us and them, friend and enemy. It’s only a matter of time until these distinctions are applied against domestic “others” who are deemed impure or subversive, whether they are political opponents, immigrants or ethnic minorities.
A free society needs certain virtues, Charles C. W. Cooke warns.
New kid on the block: John McWhorter has started a newsletter.
Did Reddit save AMC? Sonny Bunch hopes so.
Michael Woolridge on why AI can’t yet translate Proust:
The point is that a translator of Proust’s classic novel requires more than just an understanding of French. You could be the most competent reader of French in the world and still find yourself bewildered by Proust, and not just because of his frankly exhausting prose style. To properly understand Proust—and hence to properly translate Proust—you also need to have a great deal of background knowledge. Knowledge about French society and life in the early 20th century (for example, you would need to know they used candles for lighting); knowledge of French history (of François I and Charles V and the rivalry between them); knowledge about early-20th-century French literature (the writing style of the time, allusions that authors might make); and knowledge about Proust himself (what were his main concerns?). A neural net of the type used in Google Translate has none of that.
“Frankly exhausting”—or frankly excellent!?
Proust-time: Giovanni Boldini’s portrait of Robert de Montesquiou, the probable inspiration for the Baron de Charlus (one of the principal characters of In Search of Lost Time):