Fusionism has historically been a noble intellectual tradition with some serious strengths, but unfortunately even at its heights this never translated into a whole lot of tangible political victory.
As Slade correctly notes, during the Cold War most of the fusionists who made it into government got absorbed into the hawkish fold, and the fixation with a muscular foreign policy ultimately ended up totally taking over the second Bush administration which was probably the last gasp of fusionism. That kind of foreign policy was bad for American liberty, fiscal responsibility, a great cost to human life and so on— all with little to show for it, especially after the cold war was over and those hawks were looking for any rival they could find. Domestic affairs were neglected, so all that virtue and liberty stuff failed to cross over into domestic policy.
Honestly the best time for fusionism was the Clinton administration because of Gingrich and the Contract with America. Some good stuff came out of that. But we haven't ever had an effective "fusionist" president with a successful domestic agenda. And perhaps we aren't likely to for the foreseeable future.
I'd also add there's a fundamental tension between liberty and virtue in modern America because it begs the question: *whose virtue?* In a country where everyone agrees on the same basic values, you don't need coercion or politicization to enforce virtue. Civil society takes care of that. But in a country with many different cultural groups that hold fundamentally different values, virtue doesn't foment spontaneously. It's impossible to get everyone to agree at scale once you get down to the level of contentious issues where the virtue debate is ultimately most important.
It also begs the question of what to do about the “vice economy”: a lot of fusionists opposed things like the legalization of sex work and gambling, which today - let’s be real - makes up a lot more of the economy than it used to. Which value prevails there: liberty or virtue?
I broadly agree with your thoughtful comment. There is an eternal tension between liberty and virtue or freedom and responsibility in human nature. This tension is never going to disappear or life will cease to exist (unless you were a fundamentalist of some kind, believing in the eternal of heaven of some kind). So it is essential for any healthy society or even individuals themselves to find some way or structure to integrate liberty and virtue to whatever degree of perfection possible. This is not a free choice question, it’s like oxygen, you must breathe to stay alive. The choices are what kind of air you breathe in and how your own conducts, individually as well as collectively, affect such choices. There are excellent scholarly works on the science of human values that elucidate the structure of such choices. For example, Spiral Dynamics by Don Beck. Similar to the double helix of biological DNA, it turns out that there are structural correlations between our values choices and human flourishing. We bang our heads against the wall when we try to defy law of human nature or law of gravity which is what happens in human affairs 99% of time. I am not being pessimistic. On the contrary, I am very optimistic about the potential of human nature. It just began from a very low bar. We have to be humble but no less excited about it.
Fusionism has historically been a noble intellectual tradition with some serious strengths, but unfortunately even at its heights this never translated into a whole lot of tangible political victory.
As Slade correctly notes, during the Cold War most of the fusionists who made it into government got absorbed into the hawkish fold, and the fixation with a muscular foreign policy ultimately ended up totally taking over the second Bush administration which was probably the last gasp of fusionism. That kind of foreign policy was bad for American liberty, fiscal responsibility, a great cost to human life and so on— all with little to show for it, especially after the cold war was over and those hawks were looking for any rival they could find. Domestic affairs were neglected, so all that virtue and liberty stuff failed to cross over into domestic policy.
Honestly the best time for fusionism was the Clinton administration because of Gingrich and the Contract with America. Some good stuff came out of that. But we haven't ever had an effective "fusionist" president with a successful domestic agenda. And perhaps we aren't likely to for the foreseeable future.
I'd also add there's a fundamental tension between liberty and virtue in modern America because it begs the question: *whose virtue?* In a country where everyone agrees on the same basic values, you don't need coercion or politicization to enforce virtue. Civil society takes care of that. But in a country with many different cultural groups that hold fundamentally different values, virtue doesn't foment spontaneously. It's impossible to get everyone to agree at scale once you get down to the level of contentious issues where the virtue debate is ultimately most important.
It also begs the question of what to do about the “vice economy”: a lot of fusionists opposed things like the legalization of sex work and gambling, which today - let’s be real - makes up a lot more of the economy than it used to. Which value prevails there: liberty or virtue?
I broadly agree with your thoughtful comment. There is an eternal tension between liberty and virtue or freedom and responsibility in human nature. This tension is never going to disappear or life will cease to exist (unless you were a fundamentalist of some kind, believing in the eternal of heaven of some kind). So it is essential for any healthy society or even individuals themselves to find some way or structure to integrate liberty and virtue to whatever degree of perfection possible. This is not a free choice question, it’s like oxygen, you must breathe to stay alive. The choices are what kind of air you breathe in and how your own conducts, individually as well as collectively, affect such choices. There are excellent scholarly works on the science of human values that elucidate the structure of such choices. For example, Spiral Dynamics by Don Beck. Similar to the double helix of biological DNA, it turns out that there are structural correlations between our values choices and human flourishing. We bang our heads against the wall when we try to defy law of human nature or law of gravity which is what happens in human affairs 99% of time. I am not being pessimistic. On the contrary, I am very optimistic about the potential of human nature. It just began from a very low bar. We have to be humble but no less excited about it.