Clarence Thomas, Tough Fathers, and the Partisan Divide over Policing

The other day I watched a recent PBS “American Masters” on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas seems to be emerging from his shell a bit—he is actually asking questions during Court arguments, something he hasn’t done for decades, and now this biography, which consists largely of Thomas sitting alone and describing his life and thoughts.  

Thomas has long been a spokesman and model for black conservatives. As I write this the US is in the grip of racial unrest following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. I have no idea of Thomas’s thoughts on the current protests, but judging by his general views it is safe to say he doesn’t approve.  Unlike most African-American leaders, Thomas sees black progress as almost entirely a matter of individual effort.  Neither government programs or mass action are useful; in fact they harm African-Americans by diverting them from acquiring self-discipline and self-responsibility.  Complaining about the ‘system’ is a sign of weakness. How did he reach conclusions so at odds with the mainstream views in the African-American community?    

Thomas has a compelling life story.  He grew up poor and isolated in rural Georgia and Jim Crow Savannah.  His single mother basically gave up trying to raise him and his brother and turned them over to her parents.  It was his maternal grandfather who, according to Thomas, stamped him permanently and for the good.  He was a tough, unsentimental disciplinarian who taught that the world owes you nothing and you have to fight for everything you get.  He broached no compromises.  In 2007 Thomas wrote a biography with the revealing title My Grandfather’s Son; a review summarizes Thomas’s own description of his grandfather like this:

• “ He never praised us, just as he never hugged us.” Beatings with belt or switch were frequent. Eventually, Thomas writes, Anderson [the grandfather] bought a new truck for his business, but he took out the heater. “The warmth, he said, would only make us lazy.”

• His grandfather was Catholic, and in high school Thomas embarked on a program aiming for the priesthood, then quit because of the insufferable racism of his classmates and teachers (Thomas was the only black student).  His grandfather unceremoniously turned him out of the house for violating one of his key rules, always finish what you start. 

Thomas in college and law school was something of a radical, though more in his politics than his daily life.  He supported civil rights and black empowerment.  But over time his views shifted.  According to his story, when he graduated from Yale the only job offer he could get was for a position in the Missouri Attorney General’s office, offered by its Republican Attorney General, John Danforth.  In Thomas’s view,  this was because prospective employers all believed he had gotten his degree not because of individual merit, but on account of affirmative action.  (I personally find it very hard to believe that in the 1970s a talented black graduate of Yale couldn’t have more options, but it certainly rings true that Thomas would have detected skepticism about his qualifications.)

When Danforth was elected to the Senate, Thomas followed him to Washington and a series of Reagan era appointments culminating in his nomination to the Supreme Court by President Bush.  

• Along the way he fell under the spell of natural rights purists from the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank in the Straussian orbit; it is unclear what sort of views Thomas had about Constitutional interpretation before this.  

• With help from the conservative black economist Thomas Sowell and reading Ayn Rand—Thomas used to require his staff to watch the movie version of “The Fountainhead”—he began to tilt ever more firmly towards the hard-core originalist views he is known for today. 

In the PBS show you can see how much Thomas revels in the certainty and clarity of his newfound opinions.  When he describes how a natural rights interpretation of the law makes everything clear and simple, his eyes light up, his voice lifts, the clouds roll away.  Ambiguity and uncertainty, even about such difficult matters, clearly fills him with scorn.   

What struck me in watching is that his professional evolution in a conservative direction coincided with his embrace of his grandfather’s worldview.  After being kicked out of the house, there is no evidence Thomas had all that much contact with his grandfather.  His death seems to have come as a surprise; Thomas didn’t know his health was failing.  In the film he says this is one of his great regrets.  But as a mature adult it is the voice of his grandfather—who Thomas says is “the greatest man he ever knew”—that he begins to channel.  

The Lakoff Model. I have been thinking of this as I read a book by the linguist George Lakoff, Moral Politics.  Lakoff is a liberal Berkeley professor who is famous for a theory about the difference between conservatives and liberals that centers around different views of the family.  Conservatives, he writes, are shaped by “Strict Father Morality,” which starts with a dark view of the world and of human nature.  Life is a struggle, most people are weak and sinful, and you only succeed by developing self-discipline and a strict moral code.  Trust in others, especially people who are different in race or religion or background, is risky and naïve.  Children have to be raised with lots of “tough love,” and shaped to go against their natural inclinations to sloth and indulgence.

This underlying worldview, according to Lakoff, carries over into views of politics and public policy.   Government should be limited to a few essential tasks.  Government coddling is immoral and destructive, because it encourages weakness and dependence.  People (and businesses) need to be left to sink or swim without government interference, whether in the form of social programs or taxes and regulations.  Success, especially in business, is the truest indicator of moral virtue.  Blaming failure on a bad environment or poverty or racism is a sign of weakness.  

In conservative eyes, liberals who embrace a different model, “Nurturant Parent Morality,” are guilty of corrupting the youth by offering social programs that short-circuit the development of self-restraint.  Liberal values that emphasize tolerance and concern for the poor and disadvantaged actually hurt their intended beneficiaries.

For Thomas, affirmative action and everything associated with preferences for minorities are prime examples of liberal immorality.  Liberals deny individuality by assuming there is only one ‘correct’ way to be black. Thomas sees his conservatism as proof that he is not defined by his race or by membership in some larger group. (It is hard not to see the self-doubt here, since Thomas’s own career largely depended on special treatment.  He knows his professional rise and his Court appointment have everything to do with his race.  He has constructed a story that denies the obvious, and wrapped it in a worldview that he uses to justify claims of persecution and reverse-racism). 

Thomas seems a textbook example of the Lakoff thesis.  A boy molded by an extreme version of the “strict father” grows up to hold extreme conservative views, and to worship the man who, as he sees it, deserves praise for living according to his beliefs.  Never mind that his grandfather offered no warmth, no encouragement, nothing but criticism, punishment, and, ultimately, rejection.  This was, for Thomas, the right way to bring up a child, the only way to harden him against the slings and arrows sure to come his way.  

When they do come, in the form of Anita Hill and his confirmation hearings, Thomas is ready.  Despite ample evidence supporting her accusations (Thomas admits that during the time they interacted, he was drinking heavily and his personal life was in tatters), Thomas is adamant that it is all fabricated.  He blames not Hill so much as liberal elites who see him as not entitled to his own opinions, as not “genuinely black.” 

The Lakoff model is powerful but limited.  In real life few people are as clearcut as Thomas; most liberals have an inner “strict parent” they can draw on, and most conservatives have a nurturing side.  This is a strength, not a weakness, especially when mapped onto the larger community or the nation.  We need both worldviews, the one correcting for the other, and each available to meet the needs and crises of a changing world.

I would go further and argue that a good dose of Strict Father Morality is probably a helpful framework for the poor, the disadvantaged, the persecuted.  For most African-Americans the world is indeed a dangerous place, and success is going to require more than ordinary discipline, effort, and perseverance.  A nurturing and liberal view is more appropriate for people who live in greater comfort and security.  

This is the overall finding of the World Values Survey, a major cross-national set of opinion polls that tries to track views across cultures.  In poorer and more fragile societies, where prospects are uncertain and the ability to get an education and a job is often limited, people typically hew closer to some version of a Strict Father model, reflected in Traditional values.  As incomes and education rise, Self-Expression values come to the fore.  Over the three decades of the survey one can track clear shifts in Western Europe and North America, with support for issues like gay marriage gaining strength in synch with rising GDP, higher education levels, and greater urbanization.  

Conservatism and Reaction. What the WVS does not quite capture, however, is the interaction between these worldviews.  The transition from one to the other is not placid and seamless.  As conservative values decline, their adherents become angrier and more afraid.  What were once largely unquestioned judgments, viewed as simply natural or obvious, are attacked as partial and conventional.   Here in the US every year the number of “others”—minorities, educated urbanites, coastal elites, the unchurched—seems to grow, while the number of white rural Protestants declines.  The adherents of the new “nurturing morality” can be contemptuous of the old ways.   A reaction often sets in that champions more uncompromising versions of traditional or religious values.  

We saw this dynamic consume Islam and produce spasms of incredible violence.  Here in the US it has not come to that.  Yet. 

Thomas is clearly a product not of some original “Strict Father” unreflective conservatism, as practiced by his grandfather.  He is a champion of a new, harder-edged, self-conscious and ideologically-informed conservatism.  He is, I would argue, no longer a conservative but a reactionary.

The deliberate, conscious choice of a reactionary path may explain one of Lakoff’s most telling observations, that conservatives are much more effective in messaging and articulating their values than liberals.  They are more aware of how views of family and morality relate to politics.  Liberals seem to think people vote, or should vote, in accord with reasoned appeals to their self-interest.  This is largely wrong.  People vote on the basis of their identities and perceived values.

Liberals are continually surprised when voters act against their “self-interest,” usually understood as the immediate economic benefits of picking one party over the other.  Conservatives understand that prejudices and strongly-held worldviews can often overcome self-interest.  Republicans have directed their appeals to self-interest narrowly at the rich and powerful few, while making emotional appeals to the identities and perceived moral values of the lower-class many.

I think this self-awareness is a product of the transition described above.  Conservatives, on the defensive from massive social and economic changes, have been forced to figure out how to defend themselves.  Liberals, who generally see their cause as inevitable and historically-determined (on the “right side of history”), have been complacent.  

Policing. The divide between conservative/reactionary and liberal views is now at the center of our debate over police violence and the best response.  For decades Americans have largely chosen to beef up the police and the rest of the criminal justice system on the assumption that more law enforcement, more “strict fatherhood,” will eventually teach criminals their lesson. 

The video of George Floyd being slowly and calmly killed has temporarily cracked this worldview.  It has forced its defenders to acknowledge that something is badly wrong.  All this toughness has inevitably fallen most heavily on African Americans and other minorities. Arresting and incarcerating African American men at shocking rates (African Americans are incarcerated at over five times the rate of whites) has eviscerated whole communities and furthered not just distrust of the police but alienation from the entire American system.  

Will this lead a majority to rethink a reliance on force and intimidation as the correct, moral, rational way to reduce crime?  Maybe. Thomas himself recently argued that the Supreme Court should re-consider the legal doctrine of immunity for police actions.  But advocates of de-funding the police want to shift resources from policing to community services: less punishment, more support.  This goes against the core values of most conservatives, and not a few middle-class liberals, who have a deep fear of disorder and see the poor (and minorities) as threatening forces who must—for their own good—be taught discipline and respect for the law.

What Thomas is Up To. I noted at the start that it is surprising to see the normally reticent Thomas speak up.  I do not think for one second that this is without some strategic intent. My best guess is that he is trying to tear down Joe Biden and influence the coming election.  During the documentary we see frequent clips of the confirmation hearings, with then-Senator Biden leading the interrogation and allowing Anita Hill to make her case.  

Thomas clearly despises the entire process, and the film is his opportunity to give Biden a beating.  Biden for instance asks Thomas a question about natural law, and Thomas in the movie says:   “I have no idea what he was talking about. One of the things you do in hearings, is you have to sit there and look attentively at people you know have no idea what they’re talking about.”  

The Thomas hearings were not Biden’s best moment, though maybe not for the reasons Thomas thinks.  Thomas may judge it useful to remind voters of this episode in Biden’s career.