Weeks before the attempted assassination of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, four Americans gathered at a diner in Harrisburg, Pa., only 40 miles from the site of Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address."
They gathered to ponder the rising levels of incivility in America's public square.
And as they dealt with that question, they pondered as well the issue that had troubled President Abraham Lincoln some 150 years earlier - -the potential loss of that great experiment that the world, for almost 225 years, has called "America."
The shooting of Giffords and of 19 others lends urgency to the question, "Can America survive the level of incivility we have witnessed in recent years?"
The Issues
I was among that group at the Harrisburg diner, a group that also included a black journalist, a black Pentecostal pastor and another white professor.
As we reflected together, we did so in full awareness of our proximity to the Gettysburg battlefield where Lincoln had voiced his deep concern that the Civil War could utterly destroy the great American experiment. He therefore urged the American people to "take increased devotion" from "these honored dead" and to "highly resolve ... that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
That is good counsel today as well.
A year earlier, in his State of the Union Address of 1862, Lincoln had warned the Congress of the United States of something that body already knew: that the nation was in danger of complete dissolution and that the government and the people alike would "nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth."
We four who met at that diner recognized, of course, that our circumstances differed vastly from those of Lincoln's time. While in Lincoln's day the nation faced a devastating Civil War, the nation today faces a very different kind of crisis.
Standing at the heart of the crisis today is a dearth of concern for the common good and a rigidly polarized population, both reinforced by a crass incivility that is crippling America's public square.
To put it bluntly, by placing their individual interests ahead of the common good, the American people -- Democrats, Republicans and Tea Partiers; conservatives, liberals and moderates; Christians, Jews and those of a wide variety of other religious traditions -- have betrayed the American dream.
John Winthrop, first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, defined that dream in 1630 when he told the Puritans -- America's earliest "founders" -- that concern for the common good was crucial for their survival. "We must love brotherly without dissimulation," he said. "We must love one another with a pure heart fervently; we must bear one another's burdens, we must not look only on our own things, but also on the things of our brethren..."
For Winthrop, concern for the common good stood at the heart of the American dream.
Some 160 years later, in 1789, in his First Inaugural Address, George Washington echoed that same conviction. He hoped, for example, that "no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests."
He hammered on the theme of the common good since, like Lincoln so many years later, he also viewed the American experiment as "the last, best hope of earth." In his view, "the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."
By the dawn of the 21st century, however, and even long before, the vision of the common good which both Winthrop and Washington exalted had dissipated almost entirely. The metaphor, "the American dream," now pointed, not to the common good, but to the rights of the individual to pursue one's own self interests.
For many, "the American dream" -- now epitomized by home ownership! -- even suggested that since individual interests were so far superior to the good of the larger community, the community essentially be damned.
America's Third Time of Trial
The fact of the matter is that by 2011, the American nation was deeply entrenched in the third and the longest lasting of the "three times of trial" that the eminent social critic, Robert N. Bellah, described in his landmark book, The Broken Covenant, published in 1975.
The first "time of trial," Bellah explained, was the Revolutionary period when it was by no means clear that the nation would survive at all.
The second was the period of America's Civil War when the nation threatened to disintegrate entirely -- the possibility that weighed so heavily on Abraham Lincoln.
The third began with the deeply divisive period of the 1960s and 1970s, a period defined by deep fissures in the nation over two great issues, the Vietnam War abroad and racial inequality at home.
The crises of that period were so deep and so profound that they set in motion reactionary movements that are with us still. These movements typically exhibit little concern for the common good, entrench themselves around their special issues, and then defend those issues with venomous contempt for those who might disagree. They operate with the assumption that they are right and everyone else is simply wrong. There is no room for compromise, no room for negotiation and, indeed, no room for voices that differ from one's own.
In a word, incivility now defines our public square, and concern for the common good is in very short supply.
In the second post of this three-part series of articles, we'll hear the voices of two of those four Americans who gathered at the Harrisburg diner. And we'll pay special attention to how these two -- both African American -- have experienced the loss of civility and the collapse of the common good in America's public square.
Richard T. Hughes is Director of the Sider Institute at Messiah College and author of Christian America and the Kingdom of God (University of Illinois Press, 2009).
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Yes! We have two sides that are struggling for domination without regard for the health and survival of the main body in the middle. We are in a very serious time.
The truth is that the current level of incivility isn't as great as it has been often in the past.
But what may be happening is that America has crested, and is now sliding down the back side of the mountain. This is causing a lot of anxiety - anxiety that is exacerbated when the basic social structures that have evolved apparently aren't working very well anymore.
It also makes people grumpy. When you lose your job and can't get another one, you're grumpy. When you lose your health insurance, and you can't get decent medical care, you're grumpy.
The grumpiness and anxiety is a recipe for incivility.
So the big question is (from my perspective), what can be done to fix what's broken - if anything? Should we aim to go back to the glory days of post WW2 economic expansion? Or does wisdom and sanity call us to a new idea of what living in the American community might mean?
Right now there is profound disagreement on that vision question. And in fact, most of the disagreement never even gets properly aired - because most people can't question their own fundamental assumptions.
One thing is certain: The current system - which depends upon the base human desire for more, always more - is not going to fix itself.
It seems to me, as I have been thinking about this lately, that most pundits anyway are not attempting to engage in discussions as much as continually demean the other side(s) and push their own specific agenda, all the while claiming to be the REAL patriots/Americans. I don't know, maybe I am getting too old, but this just seems to me to be so out of hand that I don't see a way to stop it except by maybe the heavens opening up and a mighty voice thundering across the solar system: KNOCK IT OFF OR YOU'RE IN A TIME OUT!
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This idea of common good was used to justify slavery. It was for the common good that England transported hundreds of thousands of White slaves, particularly Irish, to the New World, purging England of not just convicts, but the innocent as well. One has to ponder how many innocents were defamed in order for England to justify it's mass insanity upon a particular people.
From white, red, to black people, America and the USA enslved the masses for the common good, which really wasn't for the common good but for the good of the elites, the educated, the ruthless. White slaves were brutalized, often worse then Africans. The truth of their story was expunged from history, and the truth of slavery was forever fabricated to demonize all white people, even the innocent, and the murdered.
Our founding fathers practiced slavery, black and white. Blacks practiced slavery, as did American Indians.
Slavery is often disguised as the common good, but who's? We see it in China by American corporations. American corporations enslave Chinese, become billionairs, then when caught throw a few million to charity, and the news media praises them. Politicians praise them.
I absolutely disagree regarding myself. I have been raised Catholic and democrat. I was the second eldest of 8. I was charged with the 6 under me. I am well trained at putting everyone ahead of me. I have always put the public good ahead of myself. "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country". I am trainded secularly as well. I am ingrained with the subject.
There are millions like me, who have done the same. We are screwed.
I will never do it again, which isn't to say that I am or will be cold and heartless, but I will learn to balance, something most Americans have failed to do.
Both the rich and the poor feed off the middle class. The middle class is in danger of collapsing, and just might yet, millions already have.
Jobs pour out of the country so that corporate CEO's can become billionairs. Immigrants pour over our borders, including illegals. Trillions of dollars pour out of our country to either bribe peace out of some, or support corrupt evil regimes. No oversight of this money occurs and so we often support terrorists.
I could go on and on...........
This nation was founded on the concept of individual liberty and self interest. So why shouldn't I be able to accumulate wealth just like Christian America does? The problem obviously is not accumulating wealth but the ridiculously large amounts that some think they need in order to live comfortablely. You would do this nation a better service by asking what constitutes a comfortable life and how do we provide our citizens with the tools they need to achieve it.
In a few years the GDP of China will be larger than ours. What will the corporatists do then? They will abandon us like rats from a sinking ship that's what. Then what will you tell America?
The rest of us have a wide range of personal beliefs, but -- at least for liberals -- we don't happen to think that rampant capitalism is the best answer for advancing the country's interests.
Illegal immigrants pour over our borders straining to the brink of collapse many states economies, and the rest of America must bail them out, straining those economies. Speak out, and you are a bigot. The country refuses to reform immigration, as such we have newer and more dangerous orgainized crime then ever. Drug cartels pour over the border, and the country refuses to secure the border.
We have no fair trade agreements, none.
It's a mess and each party blames the other, when the truth is they are all best of friends behind closed doors.
Our collective apathy with respect to the common good, and our government created a power-vaccum that corporate interests stepped into and filled for the sake of their own interests.
Our system of campaign finance forces politicians to raise millions of dollars every year from total strangers in order to hang onto their jobs. So any effort to "hamstring the rich" will negatively impact their own job security.
Lastly corporations have stripped journalism of its ethical repsonsibility to accurately educate the public. At best our "journalism" has become tabloid "product" to be hawked like any other form of entertainment, in order to sell advertising. At worst (Fox News) it is a propoganda platform whose sole purpose is to indoctrinate the unsuspecting public into politically supporting the corporate agenda.
In both the Revolution and the Civil War, there was a push to break, first from King George and later, from the Union that had been formed. It seems to me that now there is not so much a push to break away from--to secede from--as there is a push to squelch the other side, and to Be Right, period. We are not divided by Monarchy and Democracy nor by North and South, but by Left and Right and, increasingly, ne'er the twain shall meet.
But how, in this culture of rhetoric and fame, do we break through the adamant focus on either Being Right or Being Famous, and sound the battle cry in a way that awakens the sleepers and releases us from this spell?
----------------------------------------------------
Simple, really.
1. Stop demonizing those who disagree. People have differeing values because they see the world differently, have differently life experiences, and are looking to accomplish different things. Not because they are "bad people".
Accusing someone of being "bad" is inappropriate unless they do harm to others....and in the vast majority of cases, even when they actually do harm, it is out of IGNORANCE or FEAR. Not malice.
2. Nobody has a monopoly on Absolute Right and Wrong. Those who disagree with us are not enemies to be "defeated", but are almost always competing interests that need to be accomodated.
3. Remember that willingness to compromise with opposing viewpoints is not a sign of weakness...or a lack of committment to one's own values. It is, instead, a sign of maturity and humility. Because it demonstrates the understanding that one's own values STOP at the tip of one's nose.
Spoken like a true union man.
No wise person or religious leader in all our history has seen self-interest allied with enlightenment, nobility, or common good. There's enlightenment, and then there's self interest.
So in this tradition, "Enlightened" refers to a perspective that is based in Reason, Logic and Objectivity...as opposed to religious faith/dogma or cultural supersitition.
So what is meant by "Enlightened self-interst" is that someone is pursuing a course of action that works to their benefit....but is not driven by narcissism or destructive greed. IOW, a course of action that benefits me...but does not damage the common good. Or (ideally) one that benefits me AND benefits the common good as well.
Not all self-interest is greed...and not all self-interest is destructive.
It is about BALANCE between the needs of the individual and the needs of the community. The problem we have in this country is that we are ridiculously out of balance towards the needs of the individual and disregard for the welfare of the community. To the point that even discussing this has become a political taboo in some corners.
Especially when dealing with passionate, single-issue activists and interests groups that drive so much of our politics.
The republicans and democrats play good cop bad cop. They are a partnership. Each caters to big business, impoverishing their constituents. They also switch hit.
There is no disregard for the welfare of the community, when "welfare" is the goal for the community. More and more middle class are joining the lines as foreign interests, religions and political, infiltrate and control, and steal from our country.
The kind of religious certainty behind political and social positions that leads to demonisation of those whose views are not in agreement, is exactly what causes the violent rhetoric we are seeing. This self righteous ideological certainty is also completely immune to being challenged by reality.
Extreme ideological rigidity occurs on both the liberal and right wing sides of politics, but it is predominant on the extreme right. This is not surprising as these people confuse their political beliefs with their religious beliefs, and both sets of beliefs are extremely strict and proscriptive.
Somehow this level of debate has been allowed to become mainstream. Certainly people like Nixon and Reagan showed how powerful lies and deceptions were in the 1960s. They also saw how they could gain a constituency by emphasising the differences between people, and they started the culture wars to capitalise on the irrational fears raised in society by the high pace of change. They were able to shift conservative views towards the more extreme right wing, and that is the situation on the Republican side of politics today.
The political mantra....especially on the Right...to winning elections has become "Divide the Nation...and take the bigger half".
Particuarlly in terms of appealing to disgruntled or fearful white voters with dog-whistle calls on identity (race, ethnicity), religious, or cultural values issues....and creating this hard-wired, Us vs Them mentality.
One that can be used to manipulate these people into regularly voting against their own economic self-interest.
It is the great political con-job of the last 50 years...but it is slowly destroying the nation.
You are not doing it to improve the life of the "Employees" , your doing it to Protect you wallet! and For your customers Pleasure!
That worked so long as there was need for exploitation. Today the pattern we have followed for more than 200 years meets the stubborn resistance of limits. Hence we turn to exploiting one another more than producing goods. That is to say, we are undergoing a metamorphosis as a people. We now must learn to get along together rather than find unoccupied space.
We have praised the courage of our pioneers who started from scratch. Now we need to learn how to stay where we are and make things better right here. "The common good" changes, so we need something more than the empty phrase. We need a plan that we commonly can get behind. I hope to see furure articles take the risk of practical politics.
The primary problems we faced in this country have three roots...and stem from our attempts to address them. One...a history of white supremacy. Where non-European minorities were either exploited, or excluded from full participation in the economy. Two....the transition from an agrarian economy to an industrial one. Three....a non-hereditary class system...where class distinctions are primarly based upon education and wealth/income.
In an agrarian economy...as long as there is enough arable land...people can be relatively self-sufficient and are assured a livelihood as long as they are willing to put in the required work. The same cannot be said for an industrial economy. Economic self-sufficiency disappears in an industrial model, unless one controls sufficient resources to establish one's own business. Otherwise one is dependant upon access to opporunity/education to acquire marketable skills...and someone being willing to pay you for those skills.
So we are trying to run a country whose REALITY is one of INTER-dependence....on a cultural ethose that grew out of an economic paradigm (agarian) where the illusion of independence was more concrete. So the bigger the distance between our reality...and our cultural mythology....the more dysfunctional we become.
Points one and three are related, so I'll take them together. The blogger is correct in that two major watershed moments were crucial to where we are right now as a nation.
If things get really down, we're all going to have to learn a different life...being proud of what we grow and make instead of what we buy.
But most non-white minorities were shut out of the New Deal. So the second watershed came in the 1960s when Civil Rights and Great Society appeared. Both of these movements radically expaned opportunity to minorities...and extended the benefits of the New Deal to them as well. One that many working-class whites percieved as being "forced" upon them by "the government"...and a threat to their own identity as social/class standing.
Couple that with the opening of society to women....and anti-New Deal elements on the Right has a tremendous well of anti-government resentment to tap into and mobilize in an effort to roll back the social contract back to what it was during the Gilded Age. Back to what it was when America was primarily an agrarian nation that was just starting to industrialize.
I do not expect much change so long as our legislators are the best that corporate and labor money can buy. We need a change to our election funding laws that will cap them in some fashion. The SCOTUS will not change for a long time, IMHO.
The Puritans are not a good example of a people who wanted to get along with others for the common good.
Washington was whistling in the wind. Party and regional differences had been a part of this country from the very beginning of the Revolution.
If you are talking about Washington lamenting political parties, I assume you are referring to his farewell address. In it he was lamenting the negatives of political parties, not saying they should be eliminated. His warning seems to have fallen on deaf ears, of course.
So I think the crisis in the 60's was probably one of setting part of the country against other parts of the country. The other crises you mention are bigger, but were not so divisive.
You have no idea how despised the South was by the rest of the country in the first 1/2 of the 20th century.