Ernest Partridge
Chapter Twenty-Four:
The Progressive Society
As I have pointed out in Chapter 10 [still to be written], the free
market – the foundational concept of regressivism – presupposes a moral
order (a “well-ordered society”), which is the foundational concept of
progressivism. That moral order includes a climate of trust, and a loyalty
to ethical principles above associations or persons in positions of
leadership.
On Trust
Trust is the moral cement that binds a just political order – the society
aspired to by the progressive.
Like a person in good physical health, a society of trusting citizens takes
its good fortune for granted as each citizen goes about his personal
business. When we dwell in such a fortunate society, awareness and
appreciation of the bond of civic trust fades below the collective
consciousness, even as we continue to enjoy the benefits thereof.
We pay our bills and send personal messages through the mail, trusting the
Postal Service to deliver the mail on time and not to open and read it en
route. We purchase our food and drugs confident that the food will not be
contaminated and that our drugs will be both safe and effective. When we go
shopping, we often do not bother to check the change returned to us at the
register, and we routinely write checks against bank deposits without
scrupulously checking our balance, confident that our funds are safe and
intact. In short, we generally trust each other.
Despite two decades of relentless assault upon "big government" by the
regressives, we have continued to trust our government. Until very recently,
we have expressed our personal and political opinions in our homes and over
the telephone and e-mail, without fear that the government has planted a
device to eavesdrop on our conversations. The supreme law of our political
order contains a Bill of Rights which, we have confidently believed,
guarantees our freedom of speech, of worship, of assembly and the privacy of
our persons and our homes. And when our personal lives have been disrupted
by an "insolence of office," we have generally been assured that the courts
would provide a remedy. For as long as this benign regime of law and order
has been secure, it has seemed so ordinary, so "natural." that we have taken
little notice of it.
No longer. For today, we have good reason to fear that this benevolent
political order is in grave jeopardy. Those of us who publicly express these
concerns are called “alarmists” by “conservative” pundits, and even
“traitors” by a few right-wing commentators.
I have experienced an alternative political order, albeit briefly. Of my
seven visits to Russia, the first three were during the final days of the
Soviet Union. During the summers of 1990 and 1991, I stayed with a friend in
his Moscow apartment. On one occasion, as we were having a free-wheeling
political conversation, he abruptly stopped me, put a finger to his mouth
and then pointed toward the ceiling, in the general direction of an
undetected yet plausible microphone. Thereafter, we carried on our
conversations outdoors. The brief stroll between the Metro station and his
apartment ran alongside the local post office, the upper floors of which
were lit "24/7." Why? I was told that the postal workers, under the
direction of the KGB, were reading personal mail en route to delivery. (To
this day, my Russian friends advise me not to expect my postal and e-mail to
be delivered to them unread). And on my trip to the Moscow Sheremetyevo
Airport to board my flight back to the States, my driver was pulled over by
the Militziya (traffic cop). He did not write out a citation.
Instead, at the driver's instruction, I handed the officer a $20 bill,
whereupon he waved us on. My feeling of liberation upon returning home to
California was palpable.
I returned with a renewed pride in my country, its Constitution and Bill of
Rights, its traditions of tolerance, fair-play and mutual trust, and with a
renewed gratitude for my good fortune in being a citizen of these free and
prosperous United States.
But in the past five years, that pride and gratitude have been clouded by
fear and foreboding.
Yes, we Americans have thrived in an atmosphere of mutual trust. But some of
the foundation of that civic trust has been seriously eroded, and unless we
repair and restore it, that trust may be lost forever.
Within the memory of all of us, we trusted the ballot box and were thus
assured that our political leaders enjoyed the legitimacy of "the consent of
the governed."
We enjoyed some expectation that those whom we elected to our Congress and
our legislatures represented those who voted for them, and not those who
financed their elections.
Our trust in our elected representatives had, in the past, been honorably
reinforced by our independent "fourth estate" – the press. When government
or the elected and appointed denizens thereof got out of line, the press
stepped in and exposed the waste, fraud and abuse. The New York Times
publication of the Pentagon Papers, and the Washington Post investigation of
Watergate were among the finest hours of American journalism.
And when representative government failed, aggrieved citizens could turn to
the rule of law, and ultimately the Supreme Court, as it desegregated public
education, enforced voting rights, protected the citizen's right to privacy,
and maintained the wall of separation between church and state.
Within the past five years, all these foundations of our civic and political
trust – the franchise, representative government, the press, the courts --
have been severely compromised.
It didn’t happen all at once. The undermining of the foundations of our
political order has been constant, albeit little noticed by the general
public. For over the past two decades, regressive pundits in the corporate
media, and politicians beholden to their corporate “sponsors,” have told us
relentlessly that "government can't be trusted" – and that virtually all
government functions can best be handled by "private enterprise." As if to
prove their point, while in power the regressives have violated the sanctity
of the franchise and the integrity of the rule of law, and have spewed out
"misinformation" from the their ill-gotten public offices, all of which has
provided just cause to further distrust government. And when nature delivers
a devastating blow, as with the Katrina catastrophe, the regressive regime
further “proves” the inadequacy of “big government” by putting incompetent
cronies in charge of emergency response, and then handing out emergency
funds, through no-bid contracts, to “the usual suspect” mega-corporations.
Meanwhile, the Presidency, and particularly Bush's Press office, have become
fountainheads of lies. Virtually from the moment that Dubya took office, we
were served the slander that the departing Clinton administration had
"trashed" the executive offices. The General Accounting Office set that
record straight. We were told that Saddam “kicked out the arms inspectors.”
A lie. That “we know where the WMDs are.” A lie. That all wire
taps take place with a warrant. A lie. That “we don’t torture.” A
lie. But why go on? There are hundreds more1
as documented
here,
here,
here, and
here).
The upshot: Trust and credibility are the mother’s milk of
effective democratic leadership. FDR and Churchill had it in World War II,
and so did George Bush when he stood at “ground zero,” bullhorn in hand.
Bush was trusted then because the public needed desperately to trust him.
But now Bush’s fund of trust, like that of LBJ and Nixon before him, has
been exhausted, and with it, his capacity to lead. For truth and reality are
remorseless adversaries, and eventually as the lies are exposed, trust
evaporates, whereupon leadership fails. Then follows a time of great
political danger. For if the discredited regime is to remain in power, civil
order, once accomplished through trust, mutual respect, and obedience to
law, must instead be achieved through force and threat, which is to say,
oppression.
So now, when our country has been dealt a grievous injury by the terrorists,
when the regime in power has proven itself incapable of dealing with natural
disasters or extricating itself from an ill-conceived and immoral war, when
the dreadful consequences of fiscal insanity are soon to come due, we are
called upon to place our trust and loyalty in an administration which has
gained office through an unprincipled manipulation and subversion of our
foundational political institutions: the vote, the rule of law, and the free
press. Today, when we desperately need to trust our government, trust, that
essential moral resource has, like the federal surplus, been squandered to
serve private greed and ambition.
And so, today’s progressives, acting as authentic “conservatives,” are
striving to restore that trust in government, along with the “liberty and
justice for all” that we once had confidently believed was our endowment,
secured by our Constitution and the rule of law.
On Patriotism
|
|
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not
mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save
exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is
patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country.
It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by
inefficiently or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the
country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth,
whether about the president or anyone else.
Theodore
Roosevelt
A Prince, whose character is ... marked by every act which may define
a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free People.
Thomas Jefferson
Declaration of Independence |
The progressive is a patriot. But this patriotism has as its fundamental
object of loyalty, not a leader or a party, but rather enduring political
and moral principles.
"Patriotism" is a word that has been hyper-conspicuous these days. The
Congress of the United States has even chosen that word as a label for its
anti-terrorism bill: "The USA PATRIOT Act."
So just what does it mean to be a "patriot."? Who are today's "patriots"?
What historical figures exemplify this civic virtue?
Judging from the casual use of the word these days, it would seem that most
everyone has a clear intuitive sense of the meaning of "patriotism." Even to
inquire as to its meaning might appear to many of our fellow citizens to be,
well, "unpatriotic." Nonetheless, we should explore these questions, and
damn the consequences -- including the risk of being called a "traitor" by
the regressives.
And so, to begin, we ask: who was and is a "patriot"? Washington, Jefferson,
Paine, those who pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor by signing
the Declaration of Independence – all these come to mind. But what about
Colonel Klaus von Stauffenberg, whose failed attempt on Adolf Hitler's life
cost the Colonel his life? Or Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union. More
recently, how would we characterize John Dean during the Watergate affair?
Or Daniel Ellsberg?
The dominant meaning of "patriotism" as it is used today in the popular
media seems to be "support of our nation's leadership during this time of
peril." By implication, as John Ashcroft seemed to suggest to the Senate
Judiciary Committee, criticism of our leaders amounts to virtual treason.
By this account, Washington, Jefferson, von Stauffenberg, Sakharov, Ellsberg
and Dean, were traitors, for they all rebelled against "constituted national
leadership," i.e., King George (House of Hanover, not House of Bush), Adolf
Hitler (legally elected Chancellor of Germany in 1933), the Brezhnev regime,
and Richard Nixon, respectively. Today, Joseph Wilson, Richard Clarke, Noam
Chomsky, and Sibel Edmunds could be added to that list.
Clearly, unconditional allegiance to a leader will not do as a criterion of
"patriotism." Otherwise, an "unpatriotic" or even "treasonous" leader would
be an oxymoron. In fact, history provides an abundance of examples of such
leaders. "L'État, c'est moi!" was a concept against which our
forefathers successfully fought a revolution. In our political tradition, it
seems, "patriotism" implies a different object of loyalty than whosoever
might, at the moment, be our appointed (or if we are lucky, our elected)
leader.
The progressive insists that the "patriotism" exemplified by the founders of
the American republic consists in an allegiance, not to persons, not to
offices, and not even to institutions, but rather to political and moral
principles. Such principles as self-determination, the social contract,
inalienable human rights, and additional ideals such as those enumerated in
the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.
And yet, if polls and the pundits are to be believed, the prevailing public
opinion demands that we accept without dissent and in the name of
"patriotism," the legitimacy of an unelected President, a curtailment of our
liberties enumerated in the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments, which
means our right to privacy, to habeas corpus, due process and
competent counsel. In addition, the public appears willing to allow the
President, at his own discretion, to set aside acts of Congress, such as the
Freedom of Information Act, the prohibition against torture, international
treaties and even the Bill of Rights, in direct violation of the separation
of powers stipulated by the Constitution.
Many brave individuals who have protested against such usurpations or who
have criticized other aspects of the President's conduct in office have, if
lucky, been met with scorn and derision from their fellow citizens, and if
unlucky, they have lost their jobs. If recent history serves as a guide,
there is no assurance that in the near future, still worse retaliation might
await the dissenters.2
Clearly we seem to be dealing with two distinct and often conflicting
concepts of patriotism. One is based upon a loyalty to individuals, offices
and parties, while the other is founded upon abstract moral and political
principles.
This distinction is illuminated by the work of two late and influential
Harvard professors: the moral philosopher, John Rawls,3
and the cognitive psychologist, Lawrence Kohlberg.4
In independently developed yet remarkably similar theories,
Rawls and Kohlberg described "stages" of development of moral judgment and
capacity. As the individual matures and ascends to a higher stage of moral
development, his judgment becomes more comprehensive, nuanced and integrated
– more "cognitively adequate," to use Kohlberg's term . Moral puzzles that
are insoluble on a "lower" level are resolved on a higher level. (E.g.,
should an impoverished husband steal a medicine to save the life of his
desperately sick wife?)
Kohlberg describes six stages of development, in three pairs:
"pre-conventional" (obedience to authority), "conventional" (conformity to
social norms), and "post-conventional" (moral autonomy -- social contract in
politics, and obedience to abstract principles in personal morality).
Rawls's ascending categories are "Morality of Authority," "Morality of
Association" and "Morality of Principles."5
By this account, the child first develops a love and a loyalty to those most
immediately and conveniently present and caring -- his parents. The loyalty
is extended to relatives and friends, and then to such abstractions as
associations and institutions to which one's acquaintances (and oneself)
belong. Finally, the loyalty attaches to the most abstract of entities,
ideals and principles. A dramatic moral crisis, such as the Watergate
Scandal, often illustrates the conflict between these three stages of
morality. In the Watergate affair, some officials were motivated by their
loyalty to a person, i.e., Mr. Nixon. Others were moved by their loyalty to
an institution, i.e., the Presidency. Still others, such as John Dean, acted
in accordance with their duty to uphold the general principle of equal
justice under the law.
This conflict among concepts of "patriotism" as obedience to authority, as
conformity to convention and as loyalty to principle resonates throughout
history and literature. For example, Shakespeare thus depicts Brutus'
justification of his assassination of Julius Caesar:
Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar
were dead, to live all free men? ... Who is here so base that would be a
bondman? Speak, for him have I offended... Who is here so vile that will
not love his country? Speak, for him have I offended.
Marc Antony then turned the attention of the crowd toward Caesar's
alleged personal virtues of charity, mercy, modesty and generosity (not
conspicuous either in Shakespeare's portrayal or in historical accounts of
Caesar's character). Antony finally appeals to the greed of the crowd by
producing a fraudulent "will" claiming to bequeath Caesar's fortune to the
citizens. (Not unlike a promise of tax rebates).
Both appealed to "patriotism" – Brutus to a loyalty to principle, and Antony
to loyalty to a charismatic leader. The Roman mob chose Marc Antony's lies
and cult of personality over Brutus' ideals. And that decision marked the
end of the Roman Republic.
Today the American public may be facing a similar decision, as the right
wing media trumpets the Antonian demand that the public “stand behind our
leader." And that is reason for grave concern.
If our republic is to endure, then any and all leaders and offices must be
constrained by the principles of our Constitution and the rule of law, and
must stand upon the foundation of the consent of the governed. That consent
was violated in the disenfranchisement of the Florida voters before the 2000
election, by the harassment of election officials immediately following, and
by the judicial coup d'etat by the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore. The
American public appears willing to "get over" this massive violation of the
franchise. With this quasi-legitimacy safely in hand, the Bush
Administration seems intent now upon dismantling the Constitutional system
of checks and balances, along with the Bill of Rights.
The progressive understands "patriotism" to mean allegiance to shared
political ideals, embodied in the rule of law. Accordingly, a President and
his Administration must earn the support of the public by exemplifying these
ideals and by submitting to the constraints of the law and our national
charter, The Constitution. After all, every President, in his very first act
in office, takes an oath that he "will to the best of [his] ability,
preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." That
oath appears, verbatim, in the Constitution itself. (Article 2, Section 1).
The President who fails to abide by this oath relinquishes his right to hold
his office, and it becomes the patriotic duty of the legislature, the
judiciary, and the citizenry to separate that President from his office.
In the current controversy over "patriotism," our collective moral and
political maturity is being severely tested, as we encounter this crucial
question: "Is our ultimate loyalty to our leaders or to our Constitution?"
The progressive is firmly on the side of the Constitution, not simply
because it is the founding document of our republic, but more fundamentally,
because of the political and moral ideals that it embodies.
Loyalty to the master is the ethic of the slave. Loyalty to principle is the
ethic of the free citizen.
On Civic Friendship
The United States of America is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and
multi-religious nation-state.
So too are Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
So why is the United States, unlike these unfortunate countries, not
suffering tribal turmoil? Why are we and most of our fellow citizens at
least moderately safe in our homes, possessions and persons?
I certainly do not wish to suggest that we have achieved an acceptable level
of personal safety and domestic tranquility, or that one can not identify
enormous room for improvement. In numerous countries we find noticeably
greater civility and tranquility among the citizens -- New Zealand, England,
Switzerland, The Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries immediately
come to mind. Continuing racial tensions, the conditions of our inner
cities, the impoverishment of our children, are national scandals. And our
continuing love-affair with firearms makes each of us about sixty-four times
more likely to be killed by gunfire than our British cousins.6
Even so, we Americans are separated by one-hundred and thirty-five years
from our one and only civil war. Our Constitution is the oldest continuously
operative political charter in the civilized world. There is no armed
rebellion against the government, or armed conflict by one racial, ethnic or
religious faction against another. Occasional acts of violence against the
government or the social order, such as the Oklahoma City bombing, are
universally recognized as aberrations, and the belief of the perpetrators
that such acts will "set off" a mass rebellion against the established
political order are immediately recognized as delusional. Principled civil
disobedience, such as the civil rights movement of the sixties, succeeds on
the foundation of the common principles of political morality, in
particularly equal rights and human worth, as proclaimed in our founding
documents. Racial segregation collapsed when the aggrieved victims
dramatized the moral contradictions of their oppressor's doctrine. "Separate
but equal" was thus proven a moral absurdity.
Thus, we enjoy moderate "domestic tranquility," thanks to our shared
concepts of justice and personal worth, and our sense that we belong to a
unified community -- we are all, despite all our differences, compatriots --
we are "Americans." Accordingly, in our fortunate society, we are bound by
"civic friendship" in what John Rawls calls a "well-ordered society."
All this advantage is now under threat by the ideology of the libertarian
right: "the private society."
The Well-Ordered Society. As we noted at the beginning of this
chapter, the progressive believes that a functioning market, and the
opportunity for each individual to seek the maximization of one’s personal
self interest, is not, as the libertarians insist, the foundational
condition of a just society. On the contrary, says the progressive, that
market and that opportunity presupposes a stable and reliable (“trusted”)
moral order. Thus the personal moral probity of each citizen (or, more
realistically, of most citizens), is a necessary condition of a well-ordered
society. But it is not sufficient.
Suppose that several families comprised of saintly individuals, each family
unknown to the others, were to simultaneously enter an uninhabited region
and set up a village. While each was trustworthy, each would not know if his
near neighbor were a saint or a scoundrel, and so each would prudently be on
his guard. Thomas Hobbes saw this "state of nature" as a desperate
situation, to be solved only by the surrender of individual personal
liberties to the "sovereign," who would then impose peace and order on the
commonwealth, ruthlessly if necessary. The “sovereign” is the government, so
vehemently distrusted by the libertarians.
Historical experience suggests a more benign solution. For as each
individual in our hypothetical settlement becomes better acquainted with his
neighbors, as each learns that they share conceptions of justice, fair play,
and mutual respect, bonds and expectations of trust are established. When
interests compete and conflict, rules of conduct and mutually acknowledged
modes of adjudication are applied, leading to amicable resolutions. These
“rules” and “modes” are then formalized in to a body of law, the enforcement
of which requires a government. The "well-ordered society" emerges and is
maintained. (As we pointed out in Chapter Six, Axelrod and Hamilton have
explained this “evolution of altruism.”) {“Promissory note:” This section in
Ch. 6 is still to be written}.
In short, "good order" is established, not only when I act morally, but also
when I understand that your conduct is governed by the same principles of
justice and the same respect for the dignity of persons. But that is not
quite enough: for in addition, each must understand for himself and
recognize in the other, this mutual obedience to moral principles and this
immediate sentiment of mutual respect. I not only know that I will treat you
fairly and honorably, but you also know that I will do so; and conversely, I
also know, as you do, that you too will treat me likewise.7
Perhaps the closest achievement of this ideal is found among mutual-interest
communities. For example, when I encounter a stranger on a wilderness trail
or on a wild river, I feel no threat and fall immediately into a friendly
conversation. In stark contrast, I would never be so foolish as to walk
alone at night in Central Park or South Bronx, where I would, for good
reason, fear the worst from my next encounter with a stranger. [Also,
if I were black and pulled over by a white policeman in a southern town.]
Clearly, what we are describing here is an ideal and flourishing community
-- an association of individuals sharing, "in common," moral ideals, a sense
of justice, and a respect for the humanity of each and of all. Each member
recognizes the community -- "our club," "our profession," "our faith," "our
country," and (dare we hope) "our planet" -- as an entity of value apart
from the totality of constituent individuals.
In failed communities such as Ulster, Bosnia, Kosovo and Uganda, tribal
loyalties blind the individual to the worth, even the right to life, of
"those others." There is little or no loyalty to the greater encompassing
entity, the state.
The Private Society. In contrast, there is a conception of
"society" that has little use for shared communal values. Rawls calls it
"the private society," and describes it thus:
Its chief features are first that the persons comprising it .. have
their own private ends which are either competing or independent, but not
in any case complementary. And second, institutions are not thought to
have any value in themselves, the activity of engaging in them not being
counted as a good but if anything as a burden. Thus each person assesses
social arrangements solely as a means to his private aims. No one takes
account of the good of others, or of what they possess; rather everyone
prefers the most efficient scheme that gives him the largest share of
assets.8
As we have noted, repeatedly, Margaret Thatcher endorsed "the private
society" with stark simplicity and brevity, when she proclaimed: "There is
no such thing as society, there are only individuals and families."9
Of course, Rawls has here describe, as “the private society,” kind of
"society" described by the neo-classical economist and recommended by the
libertarian. To the neo-classical economist, society is exemplified by "the
perfect market" populated by egoistic "utility maximizing" homo
economicus. To the libertarian, popular government has no legitimate
function other than the protection of personal life, liberty and property.
When this conception of "the private society" was celebrated a generation
ago by the novelist Ayn Rand, it was generally regarded as too outlandish to
be taken seriously. A kindred ideology, presented by Barry Goldwater, was
soundly rejected by the voters in the 1964 Presidential election. Through
the persistent and lavishly funded efforts of a few true believers, the
dogma of "the private society" has become the dominant political ideology of
our time. It is heard, time and again, in the political and media complaints
against the "evils" of "big government," and also the rarely questioned
faith that social problems will best be solved by "the free market"
unconstrained by "government interference."
Policy Implications
The contrast between the progressive’s idealized "well-ordered society"
and the regressive’s "private society" (regressivism) is exemplified in most
of the public and political issues of our time.
In public discourse, these competing positions are designated as "liberal"
and "conservative." However, as I pointed out in Chapter Two, these terms
are grossly misleading. Far from being “conservative,” the right is
destructive of our established political institutions and thus is better
described as “regressive” and “radical.” The left, while once correctly
designated as “liberal,” is now advised to avoid that word, since the term
“liberal” has been so besmirched by right-wing propaganda
As we proceed with this list, we will recapitulate many observations and
conclusions from earlier in the book.
Criminal Justice: To the regressive-right, the purpose of
incarceration is retribution and punishment. The offender is to be separated
from society as long as possible -- hence mandatory sentencing, "three
strikes," and minimal preparation for a successful re-entry into society
upon release. To the progressive, the purpose of incarceration is
rehabilitation, so that the individual might be successfully rejoin the
community upon his release.
Gun Control: The regressive advocates a return to the frontier system
(more of popular legend than of history), with each individual his own
defender. Hence "concealed weapons laws" and "Second Amendment absolutism."
The progressive believes that greater security is to be found in a disarmed
society, where each citizen might be confident that the next stranger he or
she meets will not be "packin'."
Civil Society: In private “regressive”society, individuals are
regarded as autonomous "utility maximizers" -- as means (qua workers or
consumers) to further one's private ends. In the well-ordered
“progressive”society, voluntary associations of citizens flourish and
proliferate -- groups of individuals who come together as equals,
face-to-face, through common faith, through common interests (garden and
kennel clubs, bowling leagues, Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs, etc), and through
shared concerns (environmental action groups, political action groups,
etc.).
Art and Culture: To the libertarian, an individual's taste in art,
music and literature is strictly that person's own business. Government
support of the arts or art education or public broadcasting, by "taking" the
property of one person through taxation to subsidize the preferences of
another, amounts to simple theft. The progressive is convinced that, left to
"market forces" alone, public taste will degrade and the popular culture
will be coarsened. Aesthetic taste and a refined intellect, he insists, do
not emerge, ex nihilo, from the mind of the growing child; rather, these are
qualities that are absorbed from the culture and acquired through deliberate
modes of education. Put simply, the cultural progressive feels that it is
better to live in the company of fellow citizens who listen to Mozart and
Beethoven and who are familiar with Shakespeare and Dosteyevsky, than to
live amidst individuals who know only “gangsta rap” and acid rock, and
slasher films and video games.
The Environment: The libertarian right proposes to cut up the
environment into parcels of private property, which the owners are free to
use in any way they see fit. The religious right believes that God gave the
earth to humans for them to use, and use-up. There is no concern about
environmental deterioration or the depletion of resources, since these are
“the end times,” after which mankind will have no use for the environment.
The progressive regards the environment as an inheritance from the past and
a legacy for the future, to be treated with love and respect during the
brief tenure of the present generation. The secular progressive insists, not
that the earth belongs to mankind, but that mankind belongs to the earth,
which gave rise to and sustains our species, as long as we treat it with
care and respect. The religious progressive also takes a long-term view of
the environment, believing that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness
thereof.”
Primary Education: The libertarian right holds that education of the
child is the parents’ responsibility, and that taxation to pay for the
education of others’ children is theft. Moreover, regressives complain that
public education in the United States is a disaster, notwithstanding the
fact of its success in the past, and in other industrialized countries.
Accordingly, rather than repair the public schools, the regressives propose
to abandon them through "privatization" -- a system of "vouchers" that would
drain the talented and well-behaved children from the public schools,
withdraw the support of the parents of these fortunate children, and leave
the public system in ruins, thus casting away the ladder of advancement out
of poverty and destitution.
The progressive regards public education as a common benefit and points out
that until recently, the American public school system was one of our most
successful and unifying institutions -- until, that is decades of miserly
financial support and the declining status of the teaching profession began
to take its toll. Amidst the clamor of criticism today, says the
progressive, we have forgotten that earlier in this century, and at the
close of the previous century, the public school system was the gateway
through which the flood of immigrant and first-generation children learned
of our history and our political ideals, became fluent in our common
language, acquired the skills to be assimilated into our labor force -- in
short, became "Americanized." Thus the public schools were crucially
important instruments in the maintenance of our "civic friendship."
Higher Education: According to "the private society" view, an
individual's education is, of course, of advantage to himself. However, no
attention, much less public investment, need be made to alleged "social
benefits" of others' education. Fortunately, the progressive replies, this
was not the opinion of the enlightened legislators in the early twentieth
century who expanded the system of public higher education. A paradigm case
was the City University system in New York City, whereby a resident
youngster of sufficient talent and motivation, however poor, could continue
his education through graduate school. Thousands of doctors, jurists,
engineers, and scientists from impoverished immigrant families emerged from
that system. Similarly, what Jefferson called a "natural aristocracy of
talent and virtue" took advantage of the University of California system --
until recently, the finest system of public higher education in the world.
However, this was not good enough for the "regressives," and so public
higher education in California has become increasingly "privatized," as
tuitions have soared, state support has fallen, and a large part of the
"slack" has been assumed by corporate-funded research. And with the
abolition of "affirmative action" in California, still more talented and
motivated youngsters, who had the bad luck of choosing poor and minority
parents, will be deprived of the opportunities that might have been enjoyed
by their parents or grandparents.
Government: To the libertarian, government "is the most dangerous
institution known to man" (John Hospers). "Big government" whittles away at
our "natural rights and liberties" by imposing burdensome regulations upon
our commercial activities ("capitalist acts among consenting adults" --
Robert Nozick) , and by confiscating our property, through taxation, to
support other people's children (welfare), others' education (the public
schools), and others artistic and literary tastes (public broadcasting,
museums, the National Endowment for the Arts). To the progressive,
government is the one institution which can legitimately act in behalf of
all, treating each citizens as an equal before the law. Thus government can
legitimately act to protect the numerous poor and weak from the few who are
powerful and wealthy. At its best, government protects the rights of each
individual citizen and embodies and enforces the principles of justice
which, when publicly acknowledged and shared, are the foundation of the
well-ordered society.
In General: The progressive affirms that the citizens of a
"well-ordered society" regard the private economy, the shared social
institutions, and the popularly elected government and body of laws as
"ours." In the "private society," those outside "the establishment" (the
corporate boardrooms, the fellowship of lobbyists and legislators, the
media), regard the economy and the government as the property of “the
establishment." All others are alienated from the forces that control their
lives and which devastate their hopes. The incomes of the privileged soar,
while the incomes of the ever-shrinking middle class stagnate, and the
prospects of the poor decline. Fewer and fewer citizens bother to vote in
elections in which the "opposing candidates" are ideological clones, who
conduct campaigns made up of images rather than ideas.. The media fail to
inform, but instead they entertain and distract with saturation coverage of
celebrity romances, custody fights, and unsolved murders. (Sound familiar?)
The cement of social union dissolves, as the individual is encouraged to arm
himself, is told not to trust his government, and as he retreats into his
own home, encountering the outer world (more likely a fantasy world) through
his TV or computer screen.
Can an Ulster, Bosnia, Kosovo and Uganda be far ahead along this lonesome
road?
History, as Will Durant points out, may suggest the answer:
"... the mind of Rome, at the close of the Antonine age [with the death
of Marcus Aurelius, 180 AD], sank into a cultural and spiritual fatigue.
The practical disfranchisement of first the assemblies and then the Senate
had removed the mental stimulus that comes from free political activity
and a widespread sense of liberty and power. Since the prince had almost
all authority, the citizens left him almost all responsibility. More and
more of them, even in the aristocracy, retired into their families and
their private affairs; citizens became atoms, and society began to fall to
pieces internally precisely when unity seemed most complete."10
No Free Gift. If one listens long enough to the regressive
entrepreneur, one may begin to suspect that he attributes all that he has
accomplished to his energy, intelligence, initiative, and willingness to
accept risks. "Government" has had nothing to do with it, we are told,
except perhaps to block him from even greater accomplishments. (This means,
by implication, that since he is solely responsible for his accomplishments,
the conditions of society are irrelevant, and that he thus could have done
as well in any society with a "free market" economy).
What colossal conceit!
That entrepreneur, in fact, could accomplish nothing without an educated
work force available to him, educated, for the most part, at public expense.
He applies technologies developed by others, built in turn on "impractical"
basic scientific research, which only the state will support (since no
profits are foreseeable). His patents and copyrights are secure under
protection of law, and he is confident that if they are violated, he can
appeal to the courts in the expectation that the body of law, not the
highest bribery bid to the judge, will settle the dispute. Finally, he is
reassured that if his "enterprise" is imperiled by the increasing
monopolization or unfair trade practices of a competitor, the law will
protect him.
Moreover, the well-ordered society is economically efficient, since the
costs of securing the libertarian triad -- life, liberty and property -- are
inversely proportional to the degree of "civic friendship" -- of mutual
trust and respect, and the manifest adherence to shared principles of
justice and fairness.
The progressive insists that the well-ordered society does not happen by
accident, nor is it maintained through indifference and neglect. It is not a
free gift.
To receive it, a generation must be preceded by others who have fought and
perchance died for it and who have nurtured and protected it. If it is to
survive to the next generation, the well-ordered society must be maintained
by loyalty, by a pride of shared history and institutions, by mutual respect
and a celebration of diversity, by adherence to shared principles, by
education -- and yes, by the expenditure of cash. All segments of society
must believe, with justification, that they have a "stake" in the well-being
of their community, thus the least fortunate must be cared for. All citizens
must learn, from their youth, to cherish their shared political ideals, and
thus the youth must be taught their history and their politics. Because the
artistic and literary refinements of culture will not simply "fall out,"
unintended, from the profit-motivated purveyors of popular culture (quite
the contrary!), institutions such as public broadcasting and the National
Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities must be supported with public
funds. Because "impractical" basic research (in fact, the well-spring of
applied science and technology) and "unprofitable" social criticism are
unlikely recipients of corporate funding, such essential activities must be
supported by public funding, through such agencies as the National Science
Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. All this requires
an expenditure of public money, which means taxes -- "what we pay for
civilized society" (Oliver Wendell Holmes).
There is ominous evidence that we are not collectively making full payment
for what our Constitution has bequeathed to us: justice, domestic
tranquility, ... the general Welfare, and ... the blessings of Liberty.
Without full payment, history may find us in default, and these advantages
may be lost to us.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
1. See: Joe
Conason: Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts
the Truth, St. Martins, 2003. David Corn: Lies of George W. Bush:
Mastering the Politics of Deception, Crown, 2003. And Jerry Barrett (ed):
Big Bush Lies, White Cloud Press, 2004. See also, The Crisis Papers
page on "Lies and
Deceptions".
2. See my
"Free to Agree"
{More: some quotes from the essay}
3.
A Theory of Justice,
Harvard, 1971.
4. [Citation to follow]
5. Rawls,
op cit,
pp 490-1.
6. See my
"Round Up the Usual Suspects."
7. "A society is
well-ordered when it is not only designed to advance the good of its members
but when it is also effectively regulated by a public conception of justice.
That is, it is a society in which (1) everyone accepts and knows that the
others accept the same principles of justice, and (2) the basic social
institutions generally satisfy and are generally known to satisfy these
principles. In this case while men may put forth excessive demands on one
another, they nevertheless acknowledge a common point of view from which
their claims may be adjudicated ... Among individuals with disparate aims
and purpose a shared conception of justice establishes the bonds of civic
friendship; the general desire for justice limits the pursuit of other ends.
One may think of a public conception of justice as constituting the
fundamental charter of a well-ordered human association." (John Rawls:
A Theory of Justice, Harvard, 1971, p. 5).
8. Ibid., 521
9. [Cite. Note also
Ayn Rand]
10. The Story of
Civilization: Caesar and Christ.
