That’s a beautiful idea, that the messiness, mistakes, contradictions, lack of clarity, and faults of self governance are the point of it all. Thanks for the insight.
This is an old story. Most are not really aware that early colonists depended on native Americans for basic lessons on living in this very different set of lands. Our Founders knew these relations quite intimately, and were inspired by solutions evolved over at least 10,000 years of habitation. The colonists depended a lot on the home countries, but had an independent streak that took native lessons to heart. Enlightenment thinkers of Europe were famously impressed with native kindness, generosity, and clarity of thinking, while so many colonists left the inverse impression. The Founders specifically took note of the longhouse tradition of talking issues to death with sophisticated argument, in order to reach consensus - not majority rule.
We are indeed impatient, not to mention emotionally disturbed these days -- beset with sociopathy -- but the allure of self-rule under laws of equality is a magnet we prize, and our woebegotten culture has imploded to your famous examples of Silicon Valley, only currently rejuvenating our resolve to work toward a more perfect union. Our differences are unfortunately fortified by emotionally-disturbed authoritarian impulses, and it is deeply encouraging that a substantial crowd of normal people have awakened to the need for greater insistence on correcting this with a love of our original impulses toward the difficult but civilized arts of working out our differences by listening empathetically and creatively, taking a page from our indigenous predecessors.
We keep calling it “the American experiment,” but the experiment was never politics. It was consciousness. Can a species wake up enough to govern itself without kings, gods, or billionaires pretending to be both?
The mess was always the method. The noise is how freedom sounds when it’s still learning to sing.
"The primitive fathers of the United States began by preferring abstract moral principle to the letter of the law and the spirit of the Constitution. But they went farther. Not only was their grievance difficult to substantiate at law, but it was trivial in extent. The claim of England was not evidently disproved, and even if it was unjust, the injustice practically was not hard to bear. The suffering that would be caused by submission was immeasurably less than the suffering that must follow resistance, and it was more uncertain and remote. The utilitarian argument was loud in favour of obedience and loyalty. But if interest was on one side, there was a manifest principle on the other—a principle so sacred and so clear as imperatively to demand the sacrifice of men's lives, of their families and their fortune. They resolved to give up everything, not to escape from actual oppression, but to honour a precept of unwritten law. That was the transatlantic discovery in the theory of political duty, the light that came over the ocean. It represented liberty not as a comparative release from tyranny, but as a thing so divine that the existence of society must be staked to prevent even the least constructive infraction of its sovereign right."
(John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, "Lectures on the French Revolution")
However much "America the implementation" may falter, "America the ideal" remains something to be admired.
"I’d rather wait in line at the DMV with missing ceiling tiles than take a knee before these men." Agree.
That’s a beautiful idea, that the messiness, mistakes, contradictions, lack of clarity, and faults of self governance are the point of it all. Thanks for the insight.
This is an old story. Most are not really aware that early colonists depended on native Americans for basic lessons on living in this very different set of lands. Our Founders knew these relations quite intimately, and were inspired by solutions evolved over at least 10,000 years of habitation. The colonists depended a lot on the home countries, but had an independent streak that took native lessons to heart. Enlightenment thinkers of Europe were famously impressed with native kindness, generosity, and clarity of thinking, while so many colonists left the inverse impression. The Founders specifically took note of the longhouse tradition of talking issues to death with sophisticated argument, in order to reach consensus - not majority rule.
We are indeed impatient, not to mention emotionally disturbed these days -- beset with sociopathy -- but the allure of self-rule under laws of equality is a magnet we prize, and our woebegotten culture has imploded to your famous examples of Silicon Valley, only currently rejuvenating our resolve to work toward a more perfect union. Our differences are unfortunately fortified by emotionally-disturbed authoritarian impulses, and it is deeply encouraging that a substantial crowd of normal people have awakened to the need for greater insistence on correcting this with a love of our original impulses toward the difficult but civilized arts of working out our differences by listening empathetically and creatively, taking a page from our indigenous predecessors.
We keep calling it “the American experiment,” but the experiment was never politics. It was consciousness. Can a species wake up enough to govern itself without kings, gods, or billionaires pretending to be both?
The mess was always the method. The noise is how freedom sounds when it’s still learning to sing.
Perfect!!
Love this: “Can a species wake up enough to govern itself without kings, gods, or billionaires pretending to be both?”
May love see us through.
Of all the pieces you’ve written - work that has challenged, informed, annoyed, and satisfied my mind and heart - I feel this one the most.
Well done my fellow, sometimes frantic, defender of democracy!
I wonder if you’ve heard of or read Walter Karp. You write in the same tradition. This piece echoes this interview of his on NPR in about 1968:
https://www.wnyc.org/story/walter-karp/
"The primitive fathers of the United States began by preferring abstract moral principle to the letter of the law and the spirit of the Constitution. But they went farther. Not only was their grievance difficult to substantiate at law, but it was trivial in extent. The claim of England was not evidently disproved, and even if it was unjust, the injustice practically was not hard to bear. The suffering that would be caused by submission was immeasurably less than the suffering that must follow resistance, and it was more uncertain and remote. The utilitarian argument was loud in favour of obedience and loyalty. But if interest was on one side, there was a manifest principle on the other—a principle so sacred and so clear as imperatively to demand the sacrifice of men's lives, of their families and their fortune. They resolved to give up everything, not to escape from actual oppression, but to honour a precept of unwritten law. That was the transatlantic discovery in the theory of political duty, the light that came over the ocean. It represented liberty not as a comparative release from tyranny, but as a thing so divine that the existence of society must be staked to prevent even the least constructive infraction of its sovereign right."
(John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, "Lectures on the French Revolution")
However much "America the implementation" may falter, "America the ideal" remains something to be admired.
Good stuff.
Brilliant, articulate ascerbic and heartfelt honesty. Right on target
Right on brother.
Agree.
Beautiful piece. A reminder of what our politics is really all about!
Exactly how are Russia and China “real threats “? Because they will take advantage of the rottenness of the U.S.? Please.
Have you read this yet?
www.vcinfodocs.com