How can we arouse a passion to reform America in the hearts of our neighbors?

Larry Kummer, Editor

12 years ago

Summary: People usually focus on the details of reform, such as the specific policies that if enacted will reform America. But that’s the easy part of the process, and several steps down the road. Instead we should focus on the first steps, such as how to arouse Americans and motivate them to work for reform. Today we try for a different perspective on this task: how to rekindle America’s passionate love of liberty.

“We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

… Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.

— David Hume in A Treatise of Human Nature (1740)

Scores of posts on the FM website provide analysis of the Republic’s ills, its decline and the rise of a New America on its ruins. Just like the articles in scores of hundreds of other websites. I see the problem as our mysteriously broken observation-orientation-decision-action loop (OODA loop). More specifically, our lack of clear sight, our gullibility, our inability to choose strong leaders, to formulate goals and plans to achieve them. these render us ineffectual. We are no longer the unruly, skeptical people that maintained the Republic for its first two centuries.

The comments to these posts prove my analysis to be a dead end, similar to the results of others (e.g., Naked a Capitalism, to name one of hundreds or thousands). We producing entertainment, like News at 11.

Why so little effect? As a people we are indifferent to logic (a commonplace in history). More importantly, and a decline from previous generations, we now lack the motivation to change, let alone undertake the great effort required to rebuild the Second Republic — or create a Third. Restoring that motivation is perhaps the first task for those seeking to reform America. No plan, no organization, no goals can succeed without people committed to the project.

“Perhaps you should forget logic and devote yourself to motivations of passion or gain. Those are reasons for mass political action.”
— Advice of Shras (Andorian Ambassador to the Federation) to Spock in “Journey to Babel”, slightly paraphrased

Both Hume and Shras both agree that we must find this spur or inspiration in our passions, not our minds. Action might come from contempt at what we have become, anger at our leaders, and love of liberty.

I have tried to do this, with little success. Still, it seems the most promising course. We must find a formula that arouses our hearts, a button to push in Americans’ minds that sparks us to action. The Tea Party Movement successfully accomplished this, but failed to accomplish its original goals from lack of organization and leadership (its members wanted neither). Climate activists attempted to ignite a popular movement based on fear, but failed to gain more than passive support.

If we had the funding, this would make an exciting contract for a Madison Avenue marketing firm. Since gaining funding results from a base of supporters, we must do this ourselves. Post your ideas in the comments.

For More Information

(a) Posts about anger: