I have often wondered what the long term effects would be of the rise of conservatism. Would a strong focus on the individual with a seeming disregard for the whole have any adverse outcome on our system? And would Reagan's (and many others) insistence that we need not change our lifestyle despite a reality that suggested the opposite come with consequences? One of the conflicts that has always been present in this country is the tension that exists between individualism and devotion to one's community, or the "common good." The current extreme that we have reached in today's political climate begs the question of whether democratic citizenship can thrive in a society built on competition and the individual. Striking a balance between the two requires us to examine the forces that drive citizen actions toward each of these goals. Can they be compatible? Or are the desires of individuals and their respective communities mutually exclusive?
"These are the times that try men's souls," Thomas Paine wrote more than two centuries ago. "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." Even before the birth of our great nation there existed the idea of service before self. When the Revolutionary generation set out to create a government, they established a republican system where the focus was on community and the benefit of all.
Montesquieu, whose writings would be a key influence on the founders, wrote about the characteristics necessary in each of the major forms of government. In a tyranny, he felt, you had to cultivate the capacity for fear in the citizens. In a monarchy, honor was the requisite personality to be developed. In a republic, however, the most important attribute was virtue, specifically public virtue. The founders embraced this notion of obligation to something greater than one's self and felt that a republican government could not survive unless driven by this virtue and a concern for the common good. In fact, they were convinced that such a feeling was a natural part of man, that "there was in human beings a capacity to apprehend and pursue the good and to recognize in the character of tohers the qualities of integrity, grace, and excellence" (Robert Bellah). James Madison, in Federalist No. 45, wrote, "the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object."
Despite the importance placed on public virtue in our system there have been, and continue to be, many threats to its existence and implementation. Certainly the increasing complexity of modern society can be counted among them. In a diverse world where the demands of career, family, friends and neighborhood converge and overlap, the average person can no longer understand the complex interdependencies that tie them to the community. Gone are the days when an individual's work was a tangible product that served society and identity converged in the context of a town or village. Today we are a nation of corporate employees in large faceless organizations. The ties that held communities together have largely vanished and made it much easier to withdraw into private life.
This invisible complexity that defines modern society presents challenges regarding how individuals interact with others, particularly in how they assess their worth against other citizens. Absent any meaningful contact with other individuals, competition becomes the acceptable resolution to the problem of disconnectedness. The only standards which determine status are the measurements of income and consumption at the expense of an individual's identity. This puts a further strain on any remaining social ties and forces one to sacrifice autonomy, which in turn leaves the individual seeking fulfillment more and more in the private sphere (and increasingly through material wealth).
Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America addressed this very concern with his speculation that society would degenerate in a system of "democratic despotism" if left unchecked. This "peaceful slavery," as he put it, was likely to emerge in democratic nations begin to take their freedoms for granted and hand over greater flexibility and authority to a powerful, centralized government without any accountability on the part of its citizens or legislatures. It also helps to explain why Tocqueville saw great similarities in this new individualism and the conformity that it could perhaps result in (I absolutely HAVE to get that new Ipod, SUV, etc). People are much more likely to welcome conformity once they have sacrificed public good for private gain in the context of competition amongst neighbors.
Furthermore, once success becomes defined by the outcome of competition against other individuals there is little stopping us from overlooking the contribution that others play in our destiny (or have played in the past). It becomes all too easy, Tocquville warned, to then detach from one's ancestors and offspring and get lost in the illusion of the self-made man. This separation reinforces the false impression that triumph is ours alone, rather than a point on a continuum that owes its achievement and accomplishment largely to those who have gone before us. Community becomes a foreign concept as utilitarian individualism takes over all forms of the self and replaces the notion of public virtue or duty to others with a commitment to "success."
So if the conclusion is that society has deteriorated into selfishness, what can be done to correct it? A book by the name of Habits of the Heart (inspired by a phrase from Tocquville) describes three kinds of politics that constitute the American landscape, each with its own view on citizenship. All contain a form of individualism, though the application and end ambition are unique. The "politics of the nation" describes diplomacy, statesmanship and the elevation of national objectives over the particular interests of the individuals. This view is the idealized notion of what politics ought to be be according to most Americans. However, as Madison pointed out in the Federalist Papers (No. 10), "the latent causes of faction are thus sown into the nature of man" and we should not seek to destroy the causes of it, but rather to control their influence on the outcome of democracy. In other words, political affiliations and interest groups will always exist. The key is to make sure that they do not hijack the process and destroy the fragile balance of democracy. Sadly, the corporate and lobbyist culture in Washington have threatened that balance.
The remaining two examples of politics are the views we are much more concerned with when talking about citizenship and individualism. The politics of community and interest are much more applicable to our discussion because they represent each of the aforementioned characteristics so thoroughly. The "politics of community" allows for the existence of individualism, but only in an idealized form free from animosity. The "politics of interest" - historically viewed in a more negative light - embodies the sentiment of "every man for himself" which thrives on competition. The conflict between factions and opposing interests requires the presence of the same acrimony lacking in the politics of community.
The extreme contrast represented by these structures is illustrated precisely because of what they demonstrate; the ever-present tension between the philosophy of the founders and the individualism of today's complex modern society. The two are inherently at odds with one another because of their contradictory nature. We have broken the fundamental tenet of the revolutionary generation in that we have put our own good, as individuals and factions, ahead of the larger public good. One reason that we, as a nation, have resisted any attempt to shift toward communalism is the fear that we will be "abandoning our separation and individuation, collapsing into dependence and tyranny." (Bellah)
This fear may well be irrational but it continues to dirve our behavior. And it does so at the expense of a real identity or any meaning in our work. A career is no longer synonymous with a "calling." The latter of those is traditionally some occupation of specific use to the community and has meaning in the larger social and moral context. A career, however, has come to symbolize a specific craft that one can pursue to success (once again defined in terms of material wealth) but which lacks any real commitment to society. An example would be the high-paid corporate lawyer scheming to outsmart the other guy in a socially meaningless game of economic chess.
In the end, it becomes quite evident that competition confined solely to material aims among individuals is ultimately incompatible with the larger notion of public virtue and democratic participation. The founding fathers would be more and more reluctant to call this a republic and Tocquville would likely see the seeds of his "administrative despotism" in our current society. Schools at all levels now emphasize pragmatic, utilitarian traits that translate well into the language of "success," but poorly into any social or moral framework. Perhaps Thomas Hobbes was correct in his observation that human existence is merely "a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death," though I tend to be far more idealistic than that. However, assuming his premise, one has to wonder where the cycle will end. Is a society that trends in that direction capable of a public OR private life? What is needed is a change in the way we think, and consequently in the way we act, especially toward one another. It is not impossible, not even unprecedented. John Adams was aware that the American Revolution was every bit as much an intellectual transformation as it was a political and military change. "Revolution," he wrote, "was in the minds and hearts of the people." Surely we possess the fortitude to do it again, and if this online community is any indication, we have plenty of great minds on the right path already.
I offer this diary not because I am pessimisic about our future or down on the potential of capitalism or democracy in general. This is merely an opportunity to express a viewpoint that is often alluded to but rarely elaborated on here on this site; that there is more to life than money and our political and social structure can not be dependant on that premise.
As Robert Kennedy once stated:
"We seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."