Is there a left left to carry on the fight? Liberals seek to reclaim a moral high ground

National Catholic Reporter, May 17, 1996 by Pamela Schaeffer

WASHINGTON -- Back in the late 1970s and early '80s, when conservative evangelicals set out to get involved in Republican politics, they dressed for success and moved in. They did it for Jesus. Or so they said.

But now a few liberal-minded folks are ready to elbow for some room on the moral high ground. Though they are far from unanimity on religious questions, some are willing to speak quietly in terms of spirituality, caring, love and connections.

Some 1,800 people of this ilk, more likely to be sporting backpacks and loose hairstyles than the power suits of their Republican counterparts, gathered in mid-April under the banner of Michael Lerner's "politics of meaning," packing meetings at a Washington hotel.

Times have changed since Lerner was arrested as a member of the radical "Seattle Seven" in the 1960s. But Lerner -- saying he, too, has changed -- still hopes to change the times. The erstwhile radical is now a Jewish rabbi who acquired a second stage of notoriety in 1993 when Hillary Rodham Clinton picked up on his ideas. He is also founder and publisher of the liberal magazine Tikkun.

At the "Summit of Ethics and Meaning," as the gathering in Washington was called, Lerner spoke of biblical ethics ("the politics of meaning is the politics of the image of God," he said), while his secular sidekick, Peter Gabel, reduced the language for the religiously queasy to more digestible terms like "community" and "connections."

Gabel, legal scholar and president of New College of California, is associate editor of Tikkun (a Hebrew word meaning "to heal, repair, transform the world") which has become the main soapbox for the fledgling political-spiritual movement.

Conference organizers circulated a Social Responsibility Initiative -- a pledge to challenge "selfishness and materialism" and help build "a caring society." They also promoted a "Covenant with American Families" -- billed as an alternative to the Christian Coalition's "Contract with American Families." Among its proposals, the covenant calls for a hike in the minimum wage, a shorter work week, a year of paid family leave for new parents, family-support networks in neighborhoods, wholesome television for kids, and full employment, housing and health care that "does not impose bureaucratic constraints or a particular lifestyle" on beneficiaries.

Left-leaning and well-meaning, conference attendees rallied around the call, which Lerner said aspired to transcend old categories of left and right. He talked repeatedly, not about issues, which were rarely discussed in plenary talks Or a plethora of workshops, but about "a paradigm shift" in which people would be treated as ends rather than means. Imagine a world, Lerner said, in which April 15, tax day, "would be a festival of joy," a day to celebrate "what we had done as a nation."

The Hillary connection

He also professed embarrassment over reports of his relationship with the Clintons. After Hillary Clinton spoke of "politics of meaning" in a major speech on health care in Texas in April 1993, the term was linked to her conversations with Lerner, and the pair were mocked. The New York Times Magazine called the first lady's language "gauzy and gushy," and Lerner was described in otter news outlets as her "guru". He was accused of"softheaded utopianism" and compared with Nancy Reagan's astrologer.

Lerner was angry. Guru, he said implied manipulation and subordination. At a news conference at the recent meeting he refused to comment on his relationship to the Clintons, saying, "The last contact I had with the White House was one in which I promised not to answer that question."

The Hillary connection is among reasons Lerner is vocal on the topic of "media cynicism." In his new book, The Politics of Meaning: Restoring Hope and Possibility in an Age of Cynicism, he accuses the media of an "almost religious commitment" to individualism and cynicism.

"From the standpoint of many reporters and editors," he writes, "the idea that people might be motivated by something other than material self-interest sounds implausible, given their own experiences in a world of selfishness. So what the media see as 'the story' is the unveiling of the part of people that is self-interested. And since all of us possess this part as well, the media can always find and highlight it, thus seeming to 'prove' that any individual or movement claiming a higher purpose must necessarily be lying."

Lerner said a negative dynamic between the media and Bill Clinton is a major factor in the president's postelection popularity decline and the failure of health care reform. In Lerner's view, Clinton capitulated to his detractors in the media by moving away from his early idealism and adopting a more pragmatic approach. Unfortunately, Lerner said, the Clintons lost courage, failed to fight for their highest ideals and confront profiteers, leading to loss of public respect and hope. Then came Whitewater -- a missed opportunity, Lerner says in his book, for talking "about the conflicts faced by all of us as we make choices between our impulse to look out for No. 1 and our more idealistic impulses."