Chapter II began with a question about America’s strengths by Chet Richards, which he concluded with this assertion (Chet edits the Defense and the National Interest website, now a blog, and writes at his personal blog Certain to Win):
“So my hypothesis is that as long as we tend to the health of our constitutional free enterprise system, our future as a prosperous nation is assured.”
A comforting thought, but perhaps operationally impossible. In July 2006 I wrote Forecast: Death of the American Constitution, showing that the Constitution is dying and explaining why we do not notice. In brief: once we no longer revere the Constitution, or even know what it says, the Constitutional political order in America has ended. For the past few generations we have slowly drifted towards a different and historically less radical political regime, one of passive subjects (i.e., consumers) and ruling elites.
Although our political mechanisms as yet appear unchanged, our move away from a free enterprise system is more obvious. To mention just two symptoms…
- Government regulation benefiting large and politically-powerful enterprises over smaller ones.
- Adoption of a “heads we win – tails you lose” financial system. That is, our elites invest under a system of privatized profits, socialized losses.
As a result of these and other changes, wealth and income concentrates in few hands over time. The middle class has survived the past few decades by borrowing, and their day of reckoning now approaches.
So I will re-phrase Chet’s question: can we re-embrace the Constitution? This post attempts to answer Chet using excerpts from a book I strongly recommend reading, and consider one of the best I have ever read: The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom (1987). America is an experiment in applied philosophy, and our mistakes have their roots in these theories about the nature of men and the best regime. The first half of Closing is easy and fun to read, with observations that will strike most readers strongly. The second is more difficult — and more rewarding for those seeking understanding of our society. After reading it you might see many things differently, and find evidence of its accuracy in the daily news.
The next chapters in this series provide different perspectives on our situation.
A Summary of my argument
The Constitution is the greatest expression of the Age of Enlightenment. At its moment of triumph, Rousseau attacked its philosophical foundation: the work of Hobbes and John Locke. A century later, Nietzsche applied the coup de grace to Enlightenment philosophy. After another century of work by Nietzsche’s successors (e.g., Max Weber, Freud, Heidegger), the Founders would find our conceptual universe both unimaginable and incompatible with their own. The contradictions between our political regime and our beliefs weaken our ability to think and to act, as individuals and collectively.
How will this situation resolve itself? We might muddle along until a more vigorous society replaces us. Or we might take a more difficult path, choosing one of the two possible solutions. First, we can abandon our current beliefs, reversing two centuries of evolution in philosophy (esp. epistemology, knowledge of what is true) and returning to the Enlightenment worldview — and re-embracing the Constitution. Second, we can move forward to find a new foundation on which to build our society — and create a second Constitution.
I doubt the former is possible today, as the preconditions for the Founding no longer apply. That was a unique historical moment, long since passed.
The latter seems the most fruitful and exciting path — and the most hazardous. Creating a new set of values means staring into the limitless abyss. Weber tells us that values have no meaning, no foundation, other than what we give them. Freud tells about the irrational sources of rational thought. Neither provides a basis for the liberal democratic order we have come to love. Worse, creating new values is the most dangerous of human activities. As a cautionary note, the 20th century experiments at this resulted in Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. But we might have no choice but to venture into this unknown and wild space of the mind, seeking a new foundation for America.
The following snippets just sketch out Bloom’s thinking, a cartoon drawing of a greater work. Attempting a 1500 word summary of Closing is like pouring the ocean into a teacup.
Excerpts from Closing of the American Mind. My comments are in brackets {}.
Modernity is constituted by the political regimes founded on freedom and equality, hence on consent of the governed, and made possible by a new science of nature that masters and conquers nature, providing prosperity and health. This was a self-conscious philosophical project, the greatest transformation of man’s relations with his fellows and with nature ever effected. The American Revolution instituted this system of government for Americans, who in general were satisfied with the result and had a pretty clear view of what they had done. (page 158)
After WWII, at the moment of our greatest triumph, we brought back as spoils from defeated German new ideas — much as defeated Greece brought its philosophy to Rome.
In politics, in entertainment, in religion, everywhere, we find the language commenced with Nietzsche’s value revolution, a language necessitated by a new perspective on things of most concern to us. Words such as “charisma,” “life-style,” “commitment,” “identity” and many others, all of which can easily be traced to Nietzsche, are now practically American slang, although they, and the things to which they refer, would have been incomprehensible to our fathers, not to speak of our Founding Fathers. … Who in 1920 would have believed that Max Weber’s technical sociological terminology would someday be the everyday language of the United States, the land of the Philistines … {and part of our military doctrine, in FM 3-24} (pp 146 – 147)
We chose a system of thought that, like some wines, does not travel; we chose a way of looking at things that could never be ours and had as its starting point dislike of us and our goals. … Our desire for the German things was proof we could not understand them. (p 153)
Ideas have consequences. Age of Enlightenment thought led to the creation and success of the United States. How will our new beliefs affect American society? The Left clearly sees the ill effects of this on the Right; the Right sees the ill effects on the Left. Neither seems to note that these illiberal trends have become woven into the threads of modern America.
Reason in politics leads to the inhumanity of bureaucracy. Weber found it impossible to prefer rational politics to the politics of irrational commitment; he believed that reason and science themselves were value commitments like any other commitments, incapable of asserting their own goodness, thus having lost what had always been most distinctive in them. {A view held by many Professors taught or teaching in our great universities, ranging from Thomas Kuhn to many radical feminists} Politics required dangerous and uncontrollable semi-religious value positing {as in the radical Greens who consider humanity itself a blight}, and Weber was witnessing a struggle of the gods for possession of man and society, the results of which were unpredictable. (p150)
Whether this value relativism is harmonious with democracy is a question this is dealt with by never being raised. … Once one plunges in to the abyss, there is no assurance whatsoever that equality, democracy or socialism will be found on the other side. … the conditions of value creation, particularly its authoritative and religious or charismatic character, would seem to militate against democratic rationalism. The sacred roots of community are contrary to the rights of individuals and liberal tolerance. (p 154)
The resulting incoherence in our thinking leads to serious contradictions, fragmenting our personal thinking as well as our society.
More interesting is the coexistence of these opposing sentiments in the most advanced minds of our day. Nature is raw material, worthless without the mixture of human labor; yet nature is also the highest and most sacred thing. The same people who struggle to save the snail-darter bless the pill, worry about hunting deer and defend abortion. Reverence for nature, mastery of nature — whatever is convenient. The principle of contradiction has been repealed. (p 172)
… we live with two contradictory understandings of what counts for man. One tells us that what is important is what all men have in common; the other that what men have in common is low, while what they have from separate cultures gives them their depth and their interest. … One is cosmopolitan, the other is particularistic. Human rights are connected with one school, respect for cultures with another. … the Ayatollah was initially supported by some here because he represented true Iranian culture. Now he is attacked for violating human rights {e.g., killing gays} What he does is in the name of Islam. {p 191}
How did we come by our values? Perhaps we can find new values that better suit 21st Century Americans!
{Nietzsche taught that} Authentic values are those by which a life can be lived, which form a people that produces great deeds and thoughts. Moses, Jesus, Home, Buddah: these are the creators, the men who formed horizons … {That is, there are a “thousand and one” tablets of goals by which one can found a people} … Since values are not rational and not grounded in the natures of those subject to them, they must be imposed. They must defeat opposing values. Rational persuasion cannot make them believed, so struggle is necessary. Producing values and believing in them are acts of the will. Lack of will, no lack of understanding, becomes the crucial defect. Commitment is the moral virtue because it indicates the seriousness of the agent. Commitment is the equivalent of faith when the living God has been supplanted by the self-provided values. {p 201}
Our society results from forging in the fires of war. The great religious wars, culminating in the Treaties of Westphalia (1648). The English Civil War of Cavaliers vs. Roundheads. The American Revolution. The American War between the States. Perhaps shaping our society to a lesser degree, WWI and WWII.
Let us hope that the process of developing our next political regime is more peaceful than that which created our current one. Unfortunately the cost of freedom has often been quite high.
Conclusion
Describing our dilemma and forecasting its resolution are both far above my pay grade. I have only one useful thing to say about this: a democracy requires trust in the American people. That is, faith in us — collectively — is a prerequisite for belief in the American experiment. I have this faith, and hence view the future with concern but not fear.
Please comment on this. Or you can email me at fabmaximus at hotmail dot com. I will post interesting comments, anonymously unless you explicitly give me permission to cite you.
Other posts in this series about how to reform America
For all posts on this subject see America – how can we reform it?.
Articles explaining why we need not be afraid
- An important thing to remember as we start a New Year
- A crisis at the beginning of the American experiment
- Washington’s Gift
- Good news: The Singularity is coming (again)
- Some good news (one of the more important posts on this blog)
- Arrows in the Eagle’s claw — solutions to 4GW, chapter I.
