Out of Step: the Unbrowning of America

[T]he decision in Brown v. Board of Education that focused on outlawing segregated schools as unconstitutional is now out of step with American political and social realities."

Thus begins an analysis in the interest of the Big Management Party, the existence of which is fair enough because Aunt Nitsy provides the inevitable editorial scolding under the label "Resegregation Now."

Dr. Analyst's exact qualifications are a little unfortunate, perhaps, but that point does not much matter. Anybody who votes in the USA and went to school in it is thereby competent to form an opinion, and her formed opinion will matter little or nothing as against that of Five of Nine. Which of these other formed opinions the New York Times Company decides to print, whether as op-ed articles or as paid advertisements, is of course entirely up to the NYTC and no business of anybody else.

Nitsy herself is probably having a seriously bad day. I'm a little surprised not to find her e-columns draped in funereal black. Jim Crow and America First both come back to haunt on the same day! It's not really quite as bad as that, and I've already tried to point at one silver lining. We'll get to Dr. Analyst's preferred expurgation of "American political and social realities" in a moment, but first we may notice what the Five of Nine are in fact principally up to, which is not resegregation, only "recorporatization." The truly crucial winding-back of the clock would not be to get rid of "Brown v. Board" but of "Lochner v. New York." It is no small silver lining that that did not happen yesterday, and probably won't happen tomorrow either. When downdumbing and wombschooling reduce us to the point where Five of Nine can and do make that happen, things will be all bad for us humble, but only half bad for Aunt Nitsy, who is after all a private business corporation herself, that is to say, a (comparatively minor) locus of Big Management.

But the best silver lining of all is what happened in the Senate to the economic OnePercenters' "Amnesty and Open Borders Act of 2007," or whatever they really called it. Nitsy is bound to misconceive that human event as a serious defeat for herself and for liberalism and for "diversity," but she ought to reflect that not a square centimetre of policy turf has actually been lost to the xenophobe community. The battle was a draw, but in the course of it there was an incidental development with (possibly) profound implications for the future, the opening of a vast schism in Grant's Old Party between the true hard core of elephant people, the economic conspirators, and most of the miscellaneous and assorted riff-raff of Big Party camp followers. [1]

Nitsy considers the Wall Street Jingo editorial board entirely right about immigration, and the barks and bellowin's from Rio Limbaugh not merely all wrong, but extremely distasteful. Even as substance, I cannot agree with that view 100% (only about 93.5%), but regardless of the merits of the case, it would be a disaster for Nitsy not to recall that she is far from in cordial agreement with the OnePercenter jingos all across the board. The steel-claptrap minds of all those "conservative" "intellectuals" that the WSJ relentlessly finds fit to print are in no danger of forgetting what they really think of the NYTC editorial board's customary political stance. Let the compliment be returned.

So, then, though the famous clash was only a stalemate as between Diversity and Xenophobia, it was nevertheless also a grave set-back for Big Management, which is always a good thing. When knaves fall out, how shall decent political grown-ups not be pleased, regardless of what division of spoil it may be that the knaves fall out over? It is admirable in itself that the dupes of extremist Republicanism should notice and question how Big Management typically goes about spoils division.

Though unfortunate, it is natural enough that immigration should be the immediate occasion of opening their eyes: there was simply no way that the OnePercenters could pretend that immigration is a private-sectorian matter that they are never to be brought to account for. Little Brother and Mr. Richard Bruce Cheney are capable of almost any Party twistification, but sometimes reality wins despite them, and this is one of those times. Had they favored the xenophobe side, they would probably have decided to snatch what they wanted under the rubric of national security. But even a thorough wombscholar would find it fishy to be informed that letting lots of aliens into the holy Homeland somehow constitutes a positive contribution to the Kiddie Krusade. Only a very learned ignorance would find that claim plausible. Possibly one of their tank-think señoritos or WSJ scribblers has in fact attempted to make such a case, although I missed it. The chances of such ingenious sophistry making any impact on the Party base and vile are negligible.

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To return to Dr. Analyst on the unbrowning of America, very predictably his diagnosis fails to satisfy me because it ignores the Big Management factor. Perhaps one may fairly say that Dr. Analyst evades the Big Management factor, going out of his way to make sure that his readers don't think of that angle if he can help it. His own expurgation of "American political and social realities" is conveniently summarized at the end of the scribble:

Racial malice is no longer the primary motive in shaping inferior schools for minority children. Many failing big city schools today are operated by black superintendents and mostly black school boards. And today the argument that school reform should provide equal opportunity for children, or prepare them to live in a pluralistic society, is spent. The winning argument is that better schools are needed for all children — black, white, brown and every other hue — in order to foster a competitive workforce in a global economy.

Dr. Analyst appears to be one of the Big Management Party's weaker apologetic brethren: he can't seriously expect many of his customers to buy the notion that desegregation was ever conceived of by its supporters as a deliberate sacrifice of quality to equality. Even worse, he can't pass such stuff as his off as pertinent to a legal decision. What would happen if that tripe was ever sighted by Scalia, J.? Imagine the vials of Ántoninian scorn that would be poured out upon the notion that sometimes the Zeitgeist wants this, and sometime that, and that it is the manifest duty of Five of Nine to make sure the Zeitgeist gets whatever it happens to want at the moment!

More competent Party ideologues have maintained all along that "provide equal opportunity for children" and "prepare them to live in a pluralistic society" were never legal and constitutional arguments in the first place. Framed that way, the antidesegregationist position could be defended under the broader umbrella of rightist constitutionalism and especially "conservative" glossing of Amendment XIV. That position may not be inexpugnable, but it does have the merit of being able to point out that the 1787 document, even as subsequently amended, says nothing expressly about equal opportunity or pluralism.

Dr. Analyst throws away most of his Party's courtroom trumps when he gives us Mr. Justice Brenner's kind of jurisprudence, more or less, in defense of a prticular outcome that Brenner would have abominated. Disciples of Aristotle who happen to disagree with Big Management attitudes ought to rejoice should Dr. Analyst's legal baloney prevail: he throws away Brenner's matter, to be sure, but far more importantly, he has adopted the Form of Brennerism. All we decent political adults would need to do is make sure that the Zeitgeist agrees with us, and then by Dr. Analyst's neojurisprudence, the Supreme Court would have no choice but to agree with us also. Q.E.D.!

No baloney so contrary to the real and permanent interests of Big Management is likely to prevail, however. Unlike immigration, the central question is over the heads of the Party base and vile altogether. At Rio Limbaugh they have a certain tendency to vaguely agree with Dr. Analyst, perhaps, insofar as they frequently call for referendums and plebescites, mechanisms that would plainly put the Zeitgeist in command on specific issues. But Big Management is bound to consult with Philadelphia lawyers who know far better than to fall into any "populist" sand trap like that. The sacred rights of the corporation's management must be made absolutely secure, and therefore Dr. Analyst's use of Brennerian jurisprudence and Dr. Limbaugh's occasional genuflections to the Zeitgeist and numerical majoritarianism are only shifty sand to build upon, not solid granite. Perhaps it is true in 2007 that the fickle mob cares for nothing but "to foster a competitive workforce in a global economy," but who can say what they will be caring for in 2017? The danger of the mob backsliding into concern for equal opportunity and pluralism cannot be eliminated, so the legal ramparts of Big Management must be erected on worst-case assumptions. More exactly, the existing ramparts must remain so erected and all the traditional ideological infrastructure below them must be shored up as well as possible against the evil day when the mob will take an FDR view of Big Management once again. Perhaps no such day will ever come, but that is not the way to bet.

The Great Xenophobia Schism inside the Big Management Party indicates, I think, that "to foster a competitive workforce in a global economy" cannot be the mob's exclusive concern even in 2007. If it were, the Wall Street Jingo would only have to point out what an admirable fostering of competition it would be to open the borders and throw away the key. In the real world, that plan would be at least as absurd as the attempt to deduce liberal rather than restrictive immigration policy from the mob's bein' terrorized of terrorists. Still, whether Dr. Analyst's particular notions about the state of the Zeitgeist are correct or mistaken has no bearing on his neojurisprudence.

Does Big Management have anything concretely and materially at stake in the unbrowning of America? Not directly, perhaps. Despite a good deal of trumpetin' from various individual elephants, a general privatization of education is inconceivable, [2] and accordingly this remains a public sector affair. However some of the neocomrades may perceive an analogy between the wicked Fedguv telling a school superintendant how (not) to do his job and a parallel interference with Big Management proper. Alternatively, some of the practitioners of Big Management in their personal capacity -- i.e., as fathers of their children rather than masters of their corporations -- may find it convenient that residential segregation of education has been implicitly pronounced acceptable by Five of Nine. No need to pay any ourageous tuition fees before the kids are ready for college. (But that's rather a low suspicion, so let us not lay much stress on it, please.)


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[1] The little zinger about "Grant's Old Party" is pertinent, since at its inception, the dupes went along with the dupers mainly because they vaguely supposed that militant Republicanism had crushed Jeff Davis and his traitorous rebels. It only adds to the fun that the general himself was pretty clearly riff-raff and no proper economic conspirator.

[2] One of the mysteries of our age is why private-sectorian schooling cannot be made to reward the shareholders properly. What went wrong for the Edison Project and other similar attempts? Fifteen or twenty years ago even I was suckered into thinking them very plausible.