Right-wing Dog Whistles, Nativism, and Picayune Case LawA paleocon’s critique of the nation state.
By Edward J. Erler
April 9, 2022
I was surprised to read in Jeffrey Polet’s review of my book, The United States in Crisis: Citizenship, Immigration, and the Nation State, that what I had written supposedly emitted “right-wing dog whistles” that signal “racial and cultural overtones.” As far as I am aware, Polet seems to be the only one who hears such whistles that are above the audio range of human beings. There is nothing racist in my book that strikes an “unnerving racial angle.” Its arguments about immigration are derived principally from the Declaration of Independence and Abraham Lincoln. As a paleocon, this grates Polet!
Polet shows no real evidence of a deep understanding of the principles of the American founding. He says, for example, “I think [Erler’s] interpretation of the dispositive role of the Declaration is simply wrong as an historical matter, and unhelpful as an interpretive one.” On the one hand, this is to be expected from a disciple of Russell Kirk. Yet his willingness to join the lazy “racism” chorus, and his refusal to recognize what Kirk himself surely understood—namely, the danger of vast numbers of unassimilated immigrants—seem less paleocon than left-libertarian. In any event, he gives no argument as to why my argument about the Declaration is “wrong as an historical matter” beyond advising the reader to consult “the expensive [sic] literature on the debate.”
The one criticism he does deign to indulge shows his lack of understanding of the founding: “Erler’s insistence that the principles of the Declaration are universal is set off against his own arguments against universalizing.” But here the argument of the Declaration is perfectly Aristotelian. We must remember that Jefferson said that the principles of the Declaration were derived from the “elementary books of public right, such as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.” Aristotle argued that man, by nature, is a political being, possessing a universal human nature. But he also insisted that human nature must be developed or perfected in the polis, that is, human virtue must be actualized in particular poleis.
Universal human nature could only be perfected, virtue could only develop, in particular regimes. This was the same theory followed by the Declaration: “all men are created equal” is a “self-evident truth” of Nature and Nature’s God. That is the truth of universal human nature; but for that human nature to develop—for individuals to acquire the habits and manners of republican citizens—there must be a “separate and equal” nation. There is no doubt that the Declaration rests on an Aristotelian foundation; if there is any contradiction, it is in politics and human nature. This means that political life will always be tragic and therefore incapable of perfection. The founders were not utopians; they were animated by Aristotelian prudence.
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Source:
https://amgreatness.com/2022/04/09/right-wing-dog-whistles-nativism-and-picayune-case-law/
