Political Centrism and the Flying Car

Political centrism, in the sense of the self-styled "anti-extremist," "non-ideological," "neither left nor right" ideology that emerged in the early Cold War and has constituted the American mainstream ever since, is best understood as conservative Anti-Communism. However, that ideology has been confusingly labeled "liberal" because (in contrast with those who more commonly bear the conservative label in the U.S.) it accepts the conservative understanding that life is not static; that occasionally small changes are necessary to preserve the big things that matter; and that defeating a radical challenge may require some degree of compromise--and what that understanding seemed to require of them in their moment. In the wake of a generation of world war and depression and fascism, with the old order discredited and mass movements evident everywhere and the Soviet Union a force in the world, simply preaching pessimistic bromides about "human nature" and the rest was simply not going to suffice to ward off what centrist conservatives saw as the challenge from the "extreme left," a necessity existing not only for their crushing hopes in Communism but their being given hopes in the capitalism that the centrist was determined to preserve, the system being made to "work for everyone" (or at least, the vast majority of the public persuaded that it could be) a precondition of its survival. Moreover, the advent of the consumer society, New Deal-style reform and Keynesian political economy had them believing they had the tools to do just that at tolerable cost, especially as the post-World War II boom got underway.

Of course, the post-war boom, after all, was the product of a host of exceptional circumstances which did not, could not, last, obviously in trouble by the late 1960s, and a thing of the past by the 1970s (at least, where the advanced industrial world was concerned). Meanwhile the memory of war and depression receded, and if there was a sense among Western elites that deprived and traumatized millions may have been susceptible to socialist appeals, few seem to have thought 1975 at all comparable to 1945 that way--perhaps in part because they did not think much could be done about it at a price they thought acceptable. Meanwhile the right pulled harder in its direction, and a center that had never been all that much in love with reform followed more readily, the more easily in as the apparent threat from the left faded away to nothing in what was supposed to be "the end of history" and "globalization" made it appear to be the case that they couldn't go another way even if they wanted to do so. Delivering improvements in people's lives, or even hopes of such improvement, no longer seemed necessary, for the logic went, There Is No Alternative, and when others reminded the center of how it had once been reform-minded its politicians and commentators were apt to snap "You're still on that?" in that way of authority figures flabbergasted that people they thought their inferiors would presume to so much as recall to them past promises (or crimes).

The attitude toward the flying car is symbolic of that. The promise of the mid-century centrist that the system could deliver the goods came down to the promise of a "world of tomorrow" that was a better version of the world of today. In the world of today the automobile was at the very heart of the "Keynesian Fordist" model, which had at its core the "automotive-industrial complex" that, nourished by the "military-industrial complexes"' colossal orders and other subsidies (like highway systems), gave the country and the world cars, suburbia and all that went with them. The world of tomorrow, improving on that, would give a whole society's people wings as it had (presumably) given them wheels, making those cars fly, an image that can seem to symbolize the centrist promise in its combining constancy with positive change. However, it has since become fashionable to sneer at the thought of the flying car--less because of the technical implausibility or physical hazard such vehicles may represent, or the ecological failings of a society which tried to put every person in a plane the way it had a car (at least, with anything resembling today's technological base), but because of the discomfort of authority with having recalled to them the promises of a better world they made when it was convenient, miserably failed to keep, and would prefer forgotten.

Universal health care? You're still on that?

Flying cars? You're still on that?