Glitz in Philadelphia
Philly Phanatics In the United States, "there is hardly any talk of the beauty of virtue," Tocqueville noted. "American moralists do not pretend that one must sacrifice himself for his fellows...
...There's something weird about the press disarming itself this way and fashioning a cult of sincerity around an event that hasn't yet occurred...
...Not much...
...But this time we must write "better stories, in a better country...
...If it rains and you take it inside, you lose all the special qualities...
...Colin Powell is "general chairman...
...The summit is billed as the "historic" inauguration of a mass, communal effort to care for, protect, and "mentor" children—a great awakening of adult obligation President Clinton says "every American should embrace...
...Monday and Tuesday's public events are two ceremonies on the steps of Independence Hall...
...altruism must be televised...
...White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles swears this story is false...
...And what will they all do...
...And they will bask in an aura of turbo-charged piety...
...Bill Bradley was originally tapped to be vice chairman, but Al Gore reportedly threw a fit when he heard the plan— Bradley may run against him in 2000—and Bradley got dumped...
...And they "carry these assumptions with them into the affairs of civil life and put them to a thousand uses...
...They "found seminaries, build churches, distribute books, and send missionaries...
...This is the one thing about which the Philadelphia summiteers are unanimous...
...But there is no such indifference, suggests the summit's official propaganda...
...Can't have that...
...Too bad...
...It is the idea that private and public responsibilities are inseparable, that we can't distinguish appropriate roles for government and the rest of society, that everyone must do everything for everyone else...
...Tocqueville admired us for this...
...The summit's organizers cannot even agree among themselves about their purpose...
...In short, the best way for government to encourage voluntarism is to butt out of civil life and get on with its own distinct, important, and (indirectly) voluntarism-inspiring business...
...voluntarism is "people doing good things but not actually solving problems...
...Not to worry: Deaver's firm is billing its services at a 20 percent discount...
...But that was in the 1830s, when Andrew Jackson was president...
...They are "forever forming" associations "of a thousand different types" all by themselves, unprompted...
...David Tell, for the Editors...
...And that politics, as commonly understood, is therefore impossible...
...Once drawn out of their own lives by politics, "they always know how to meet again...
...Floating somewhere in the soup will be delegates who "look like the community," so long as you understand "community" primarily to comprise multi-million-dollar mega-charities, large corporations, unions, "educators," national church associations, and former presidents Bush, Carter, and Ford...
...They will share the latest scientific discoveries about how to be an attentive, non-abusive grownup...
...But since it's primarily glitz, it probably won't do too much damage...
...Mind, you are not allowed to be cynical about all this vulgarity...
...On the other side of the ideological divide, conservative pundit Arianna Huffington scores the media for thus far ignoring an event "predicated on waking up the better angels of our nature...
...It is not even "nonpartisan...
...the delegates will build on a "current wave of community and neighborhood-based innovation...
...To infuse the rest of us with such selflessness, all the nation's biggest selves will be on hand...
...Blindness to the urgency of the Philadelphia summit, she says, reflects an "insulated middle-class indifference so blatant that it borders on the obscene...
...Their "hospitals, prisons, and schools take shape in that way...
...It is not a "bipartisan" event...
...Depends on whom you talk to...
...Voluntarism "is the right word for it," says Bob Goodwin of the Points of Light Foundation...
...Those few of these delegates who have real-world volunteer experience will feel lonely among the celebrities and the thousand-plus credentialed media...
...Much of the work of America cannot be done by government," says President Clinton of the summit...
...Newsweek's Jonathan Alter celebrates the summit by invoking the idealism that "lurks, somewhere, in all good journalists...
...In the creation of which no expense has been spared...
...It has—General Powell, again— "nothing to do with politics...
...Especially one this incoherent...
...It's such an important site and such a spectacular visual," one summit insider points out...
...Sunday, Philadelphians will be bribed with free food to serve as stage extras for Bill, Hillary, Tipper, and Al, who will be cleaning up graffiti on German-town Avenue...
...Philadelphia is meant to "crack the atom of civic indifference" in America, announces Harris Wofford of Clinton's Corporation for National Service...
...The nation will get something close to an opposite message from next week's glitzy pageant in Philadelphia...
...His contemporary successor, William Jefferson Clinton, is a man to whom consistent philosophy is an irritating "false choice," a man who prefers instead that credit for the beauty of civic virtue be conferred individually...
...There's talk that Travolta and Cosby and Barbra and Arnold may make the scene...
...And all the while, Americans modestly "prefer to give credit to their philosophy rather than to themselves...
...It has nothing to do with "children," of course, but it makes for a terrific photo...
...And who must solve these problems...
...Supervising such details is legendary image-meister Michael Deaver, who has hired consultants to design the summit's logo, and "focus groups that mall-test key words to see which ones grab people's attention...
...The White House simply "wanted a high-profile Hispanic in that position," he explains, so they got former housing secretary Henry Cisneros...
...So they may put up a lighted tent over the entire two-story building, including the spire...
...In free political debate, Tocqueville observed, "men combine for great ends," which gives them a "lesson in the value of helping one another even in lesser affairs...
...What do we call this innovation...
...No, it's not, replies Wofford...
...When public men deprecate their public duties they throw away the one real and practical means they have to inspire precisely the community spirit they all vow to seek in Philadelphia...
...Despite the confusion, there is an idea underlying the coming spectacle in Philadelphia: the idea implied by Hillary Clinton's famous remark that "there is no such thing as other people's children...
...They will discuss post-summit "follow-through"—which appears mostly to involve cloning the event in each of the 50 states...
...On him, whenever possible...
...Such as next week in Philadelphia, when the "Presidents' Summit for America's Future" convenes...
...But that work cannot be done without government, says General Powell, and his project "is no replacement...
...Skepticism is well and good, he avers...
...American moralists do not pretend that one must sacrifice himself for his fellows because it is a fine thing to do so...
...Joining them as mistress of ceremonies will be Oprah Winfrey: "producer, philanthropist, businesswoman, and child advocate...
Vol. 2 • April 1997 • No. 32
