September 8, 2024

"His ideas on what he called the 'politics of meaning' (his goal, he said, was 'to build a society based on love and connection') were briefly embraced by Hillary Clinton..."

"... the newly installed first lady. 'We need a new politics of meaning,' Mrs. Clinton said in a speech in Austin, Texas, in 1993. 'We need a new ethos of individual responsibility and caring. We need a new definition of civil society which answers the unanswerable questions posed by both the market forces and the governmental ones, as to how we can have a society that fills us up again and makes us feel that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.' Just how much impact his ideas ultimately had on Mrs. Clinton is unclear; confronted by skepticism over the vagueness of his philosophy — a Baltimore Sun columnist called it 'psychobabble' — she soon dropped references to it, at least in public.... 'Unintentionally hilarious Big Brotherism is, in fact, a hallmark of Lerner’s ideas for implementing the politics of meaning,' the journalist Michael Kelly wrote in a 1993 profile of Hillary Clinton in The New York Times Magazine, citing Rabbi Lerner’s proposal that the Department of Labor order 'every workplace' to create a 'mission statement.'"

From "Michael Lerner, 81, Is Dead; Founder of a Combative Jewish Magazine/His publication, Tikkun, was a leading voice for left-wing American Jews. His ideas about “the politics of meaning” were embraced by Hillary Clinton" (NYT).

49 comments:

Mr. D said...

That Kelly piece was as thorough a political demolition as I have ever read. Thirty years on, it still draws blood.

Dave Begley said...

We need to embrace the politics of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Follow the rule of law. Don't let illegal aliens invade the country. Don't spend too much money. Stop the Green New Deal. Freedom. Let people live their lives. Don't force government down their throats. Don't let the Deep State run the show. Don't let the Military-Industrial complex run the show. Don't let the Green Industrial complex run the show. Don't let the LGBTQ complex run the show. Stop DEI and CRT.

Political Junkie said...

Kelly died with high honors - Covering 2003 Iraq invasion as a journalist "in the shit with the troops"

RCOCEAN II said...

Hillary = Politics of Love = Hilarious

robother said...

Ah, the 90s. Mission statements, game changers, a time when we all identified our core competencies, circled back to the whiteboards. And meetings, endless meetings, suddenly every corporation and big law firm needed entire floors of conference rooms.

Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...

The modern Democrat Party Power Elite = the mob

Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...

Stop the greedy un-elected thugs who rule over us as a corrupt cabal of mobsters.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I was sad to learn that Michael Lerner passed away but then I realized I had him confused with the guy who invented the frozen bagel.

Wince said...

I loved her on The Waltons.

Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...

The left demand love. They can all pound sand.

Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...

The left demand love, while they abuse anyone who dare speak out against them.
The left's loyalists are jubilant with love and unquestioning adoration and unfaltering loyalty.

Sebastian said...

"the unanswerable questions posed by both the market forces and the governmental ones" Since government is the universal prog answer, what unanswerable questions do governmental forces pose? Never heard any lefty Jewish intellectual spell out any.

gilbar said...

the More i learn about Hilary! the More i wish Edmund had NEVER climbed that mountain

rehajm said...

What silences elite jews is leftie organized campus antisemitism. The money keeps flowing to the schools though…

narciso said...

Sds hack, I don't know if he was pro Hamas, but he was certainly sheep,

Hassayamper said...

I have a conservative Jewish friend who loathed that man and the other leading far-left secular and Reform Jews who have been at the forefront of the Great Replacement.

According to him, their grandparents' tales of persecutions at the hands of Russian boyars and Polish peasants instilled a hatred and suspicion of Christianity in them, subsequently hardened by the Ivy League anti-Jewish quotas, country-club discrimination, and Klan activities of the first half of the past century.

Mix in some hazy folk memories of the long-ago golden age of Jewish life under Muslim rule in Istanbul, Baghdad, Persia, and Andalusia, and now you have a wealthy and influential class of putatively intelligent people who have convinced themselves that replacing friendly, tolerant 21st-century American Christians with surly young Muslim men imported from the world's leading hellholes of genocidal anti-Jewish persecution is the best way to ensure the well-being of Jewish people today.

This worldview is getting scarce in his Arizona synagogue these days, but the bicoastal Reform Jews are still deep in the grip of this delusion.

RNB said...

We need -- The New Soviet Man!

rehajm said...

citing Rabbi Lerner’s proposal that the Department of Labor order 'every workplace' to create a 'mission statement.'

…core competency went out the window about that time, leading to ‘Stakeholder rights’ and now corporate social credit scores. It’s a wonder they accomplish anything…

James K said...

I think since 10/7 even some Reform Jews are starting to move away from that.

I may be in my own bubble, but my impression is that leftist Jewish-oriented publications like Tikkun never had the readership or influence of Commentary, even though most Jews are liberal. And that seems true today with online outlets like the conservative Tablet. Maybe it's because Jews who are more religious tend to be more conservative.

Mason G said...

"'We need a new ethos of individual responsibility..."

"Individual responsibility"? I do not think those words mean what you think they mean.

Yancey Ward said...

Hillary and the progressives are more like the insect politics of meaning.

robother said...

My reaction exactly, whenever I walk through the CU Boulder campus and see the words "Accountability" and "Integrity" engraved in the sidewalk. I don't know how those haven't triggered a safety crisis in today's students requiring jackhammering them out, other than the fact that everyone's head is buried in their cellphone while walking.

tcrosse said...

Hillary embraced the politics of mean.

n.n said...

#HateTrumpsLove #HateLovesAbortion

Lazarus said...

It's been pointed out that the New Left of the 1960s was more about individuals' existential crises of meaning than about economic issues. Hillary Rodham said as much in her Wellesley commencement address. Some quotes:

"We’re not interested in social reconstruction; it’s human reconstruction."

"We are, all of us, exploring a world that none of us even understands and attempting to create within that uncertainty. But there are some things we feel, feelings that our prevailing, acquisitive, and competitive corporate life, including tragically the universities, is not the way of life for us. We’re searching for more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating modes of living."

"Integrity, the courage to be whole, to try to mold an entire person in this particular context, living in relation to one another in the full poetry of existence. If the only tool we have ultimately to use is our lives, so we use it in the way we can by choosing a way to live that will demonstrate the way we feel and the way we know."

HRC didn't need to meet Michael Lerner to learn to talk this way. It was already in her -- a combination of preachiness with a dizzying vertigo that comes from not knowing who one is or where one is or what one wants and feeling that one has to create a personality for oneself every day. The individual project of creating an authentic identity, though, gets swallowed up by institutions and conventions, rules and orders and routines when it's practiced collectively, and all that exalted talk of meaning and identity and integrity came down to careerism in the end in Clinton's case.

narciso said...

yes she was already a fan of sdser Carl Oglesby, she was a fervent anticop activist at Yale Law, back in the time of the Panther trial up in New Haven,

mccullough said...

People who want to impose their Meaning on others. The government can’t even balance the budget. The schools are even worse than the roads. Fuck these people.

Quayle said...
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Quayle said...
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Quayle said...

The modern plan for a good civil society:

1. Dump Christ and stop trying to live by his teachings because they are too constricting and, anyway, outdated and irrelevant.
2. Urge instead the search for meaning, personal responsibility, caring, and connection with others [which usually means "give me the power and vote for my party cohorts."]
3. ?
4. A perfectly just, merciful, and happy society.

Or put differently, Western society decides to abandon God and adopt the world view of evolution and survival of the fittest, then spends the next century bemoaning and decrying that the "strong" are killing the "weak".

Jupiter said...

The difficulty with this prescription lies in the first word. The question is whether the subset of Americans who agree with you is large enough to impose it upon the remainder. If not, or if the election is stolen, the Constitution says that you should allow them to impose their policies upon you. How do you like your constitutional republic now? Of course, that leaves the Declaration; "When, in the course of human affairs ..."

William said...

He--and Hillary--proposed the politics of meaning as an antidote to the cynicism of our era. How wrong they were. If they had proposed the politics of joy as the proper antidote to the pervasive cynicism of our times, then Tikkun would have outsold Life and Hillary would be completing her second term. Well, thank God we have Kamala. Who can look upon Kamala and her works and feel cynical about politics. Michael Lerner has passed on, but a great new world is about to be born.

n.n said...

The politics of meaning a.k.a. semantic games a.k.a. a.k.a. political congruence.

n.n said...

God will be replaced by gods, mortal gods, community leaders etc as in the ancient religions of nominally secular sects.

narciso said...

the Old Gods as Jonathan Cahn has surmised,

Kevin said...

I prefer the Politics of Dancing. It's got a good beat and you can dance to it.

walter said...

He is now unburdened by what has been.

Jim at said...

Kelly died with high honors - Covering 2003 Iraq invasion as a journalist "in the shit with the troops"

Yep. And I remember the left's jubilation upon hearing about his death.

Fucking ghouls.

gspencer said...

Wish what you say were true. My view is otherwise. Until Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) run out of membership applications, the gullible Jew will prevail.

Ralph L said...

We’re searching for more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating modes of living.
Yes! Yes! YES!
I'll have what she's having.

Paddy O said...

I liked his work in Elf.

ALP said...

Don't forget Continuous Improvement and Kaizen!

ALP said...

I wonder if this Clinton speech is the inspiration for The Simpson's scene with Clinton as he says his "twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom" thing.

Iman said...

Pantsuited Pantload
your half-truths and deceptions
can’t you smell that smell

n.n said...

Oh, and experts, seeping from every pore and intruding on every crevasse.

The rule of Lemnity said...

"a Baltimore Sun columnist called it 'psychobabble' "

I thought it might've been Jack Germond, of The McLaughlin Group fame.

The rule of Lemnity said...

Michael Kelly was probably the last straight, fair, dare I say impartial journalist I've had the pleasure of reading.

Iman said...

“Teeny tiny table tops!”

Kirk Parker said...

Mission statement... Heh.

Here's hoping Joanne Jacobs comes along and recounts her story of the team building exercise at the San Jose newspaper that included coming up with a new mission statement...