The Anchor and Compass

“I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.” Barack Obama

 

“We believe in individual initiative, personal responsibility, opportunity, freedom, small government, the Constitution. These principles, these American principles are key to getting our economy back to being successful and leading the world.” Mitt Romney

Regardless of which of these men you voted for (or chose not to), I think most honest people would be able to see some truth in what they each say and believe about America.  In their own way, each desires the “best” for America and believes he knows how to get there.  Where they differ is in their interpretations of what that “best” looks like, and where it comes from.

More importantly, though each would rhetorically express a conviction that this “best” comes from “God,” I have never been convinced that either of them really meant it.  That’s not how most modern politicians really think anymore (even if they sometimes, by necessity, still say it).  In fact, it’s beginning to seem as if a majority of the modern American electorate—and those they elect–don’t really think so anymore, either.  And that is what is really most significant about this election.

I say this speaking from an understanding of reality that is Gospel-centered and reflects, as such, certain presuppositions about man, God, and the nature of the human condition that don’t always resonate with modern political dynamics.  For modern progressives, governmental policies and social action (directed by intellectual elites) correct the evils of the past, provide security for the present, and guide us toward the “best” future.  For modern capitalists, free markets and individual initiative (directed by corporate elites), transcend the limitations of the past, provide opportunity for the present, and promotes growth toward the “best” future.  The former is willing to sacrifice liberty for equality; the latter values liberty over equality.  The former grants sovereignty to the State; the latter promotes the sovereignty of the individual.

From a Gospel perspective, I am only “free” to the extent that I accept God’s sovereignty over all things, or I presume to exercise that sovereignty myself, or I willingly (or even unknowingly) surrender that sovereignty to the State or some ideology.  My identity as an “individual” is subject to the admonishment that I am my brother’s keeper, and that as a reflection of Christ my primary identity is to be a lover of God and of my fellow man.  To be a “libertarian” is to deny that I owe obedience to anything but myself and my own fulfillment, freedom, etc.

Each modern perspective represents (to me) a faulty extension of true liberty for license, and an abdication of values that once shaped political culture and motivated the statesmen in public service.  To me, true liberty is the freedom I have to submit myself to rightful authority, to restrain myself from undignified excesses, to reject the intrusion of illegitimate tyranny, and to resist the temptations of selfish indulgence.  To strive for such personally (with God’s help) is to be truly virtuous.  To lead with such convictions is to be a true statesman.  What we have today are partisan politics and a cultural aesthetic overwhelmed by the rampant individualism, materialism, and pragmatism.  Of course there has never been such an “ideal” culture (or “ideal” statesmen), but I do believe we’ve lost the ability to even value the idea of the “ideal,” and that makes us poorer individually and culturally.

As a teacher, I challenged my students to weigh the impact of both values and interests in public policy (and in historic turning points, foreign policy, even “worldviews”).  The human condition is always shaped and defined by both, and neither is ultimately “best” in and of itself.  But when our interests come to sacrifice the common good at the altar of selfish individualism, partisan ideology, and personal pleasures, we are woefully out of balance as human beings.  Similarly, when our values cease to be rooted in spiritual realities and moral “first principles,” we’re left with utilitarian virtues at best and, at worst, we subject ourselves to the tyranny of those who control cultural forces (media, entertainment, markets, politicians, etc.) toward their own selfish ends.

As we near the end of another presidential campaign, I am struck by how different the experience has been for me this time around. This is my first major election cycle since 1996 I’ve not viewed through the lens of “civics teacher.” The experience has been shockingly sobering: I find myself foundering on the shoals of apathy, cynicism, even despair. What seductive sirens have brought me to this place of unexpected peril, I wonder. And why am I no longer lashed to the mast that would secure me from temptation?

In all those years teaching my way through the U. S. Constitution every semester, I always felt an enthusiastic assurance that “the way things were supposed to be” would prevail over “what things had become.” My lessons never neglected to address the very real challenges and inherent contradictions that came with the subject. But always, in the end, the possibilities and promise of this “wonderful, terrible thing” that is our American Republic never failed to rise above the perils and potential corruptions that come with self-governance. I did my best to educate and inspire class after class of “active and informed citizens” to go forth to make good on the promise. I’m concerned I’ve lost my faith in these ideals myself.

It seems that without my annual Constitutional fortification, I became easy prey for the ideological squalor, destructive vitriol, and outlandish arrogance that passes for modern politics. The dearth of genuine statesmanship in a political culture dominated by money and manipulated by media leaves little room for hope. This sad situation is aptly described by theologian and philosopher David Bentley Hart:

Late Western modernity, especially in its purest (that is, most American) form, certainly values the available and the plentiful, but not necessarily the intrinsically “good.” The diet produced by mass production and mass marketing, our civic and commercial architecture, our consumer goods, our style of dress, our popular entertainments, and so forth [could we perhaps add here “our politicians”?]—it all seems to have a kind of premeditated aesthetic squalor about it, an almost militant indifference to the distinction between quantity and quality. (“A Splendid Wickedness,” First Things, Aug/Sept 2011)

Perhaps there is also an “aesthetic” of genuine statesmanship that’s been swept away by the same mass/consumerist tidal wave Hart describes above.

Is statesmanship, considered in this light, an “art” for which we’ve lost the “craft”? I am outraged by vast—even sinful–amount of money spent “marketing” contemporary candidates and policies to the public. I am insulted by the mindless media manipulation of a process so wisely crafted genuine monuments to statesmanship. Hart, once again:

Our culture, with its almost absolute emphasis on the power of acquisition, trains us to be beguiled by the bright and the shrill, rather than the lovely and subtle. That, after all, is the transcendental logic of late-modern capitalism: the fabrication of innumerable artificial appetites, not the refinement of the few that are natural to us. Late modernity’s defining art, advertising, is nothing but a piercingly reckless tutelage in desire for the intrinsically undesirable.

The identification of “advertising” as late modernity’s “defining art” is quite telling, I think, in the context of political campaigns and media spin of policies and personalities (“the bright and the “shrill”). Campaigns are no more than contests of will and image (“the power of acquisition”), not platforms for debating the common good. We are merely being “sold” candidates whose self-promotion and partisan posturing is what makes them “intrinsically undesirable” substitutes for genuine statesmanship.

Alas, I fear we’ve grown unable to realize—or worse, even care—that we are simply being sold a product in the guise of a political campaign. I once felt determined to stem the tide, but I find myself losing faith. Surely there must be others who share my disgust at the extravagance and arrogance that defines the modern political process. What should we now do? Where can the “lovely and subtle” voice of true statesmanship to be found? We’ll look to those questions—and consider possible answers—next time around.