The Elephant in the Room -- American Cultural Problems

The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself. -- Senator Daniel Moynihan.

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan 40 years ago warned of the adverse effect of declining American cultural values. He predicted a new type of poverty that would be one of the side effects of a welfare state and children born to single mothers. This is now fairly easy to document. He also described a “dumbing down of decency” in our culture. This has also occurred on the internet, TV, movies, music, and in our general use of language.

Several of the previous blogs have been very critical of Wall Street, the financial institutions, government regulatory agencies, and a dysfunctional Congress. A wide cultural failure at the top of our society that also extends even to major sports figures and even Catholic priests is fairly easy to document. The references below, however, address the rest of our culture and particularly those issues that affect education and poverty.

A 2009 study by the Brookings Institution, for example, found that Americans who finished high school, acquired a full-time job and waited until age 21 to get married before having children were much less likely to end up in poverty. In fact, "young adults who did all three had a 2 percent chance of winding up in poverty and a 74 percent chance of winding up in the middle class (defined as earning roughly $50,000 or more). By contrast, young adults who violated all three norms had a 76 percent chance of winding up in poverty and a 7 percent chance of winding up in the middle class. A high school education is still free, and as Woody Allen noted, “showing up is 80% of success.”

On the other side of the equation, kids who do not finish high school are 3.5 times more likely to be arrested as adults and approximately 82% of the adults in prison are high school dropouts.
Young people have always wanted more independence and to establish their own identity. One of the messages that our young people should hear, however, is this:

There are two ways that you can lose your freedom in this country. One way is to commit a crime and be put in jail. The other way is to become addicted to drugs as you have then given up many of your choices to the drug. There is nothing manly or mature about throwing away your freedom; it is just foolish.

One of the most effective way to address the issues of crime and drugs is simply with a change in public opinion. Consider, for example, the effect of a change in public opinion on the issue of smoking. The expenditure of large sums of government money on education and poverty will not be effective unless these cultural issues are also addressed.

• Brookings study on poverty
• Economic, Social Forces Weigh on U.S.Workers -- David Brooks
• Early stresses can harm children for life -- Nikolas D. Kristof
• The New American Divide -- Charles Murray
• Google's $500M Drug Sales Settlement Brought on by Con Artist
• $25B deal with banks over deceptive foreclosure practices sent to AGs as settlement nears

Intermediary Institutions and Civil Society

Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke is considered to be one of the founders of conservatism. One of his criticisms of the French Revolution was that, by destroying the intermediate institutions which help maintain order in society, the state would be left with only the tool of coercive power and this would lead to tyranny. The French Revolution eventually claimed that the state was the source of all all moral and political authority. The progeny of this type of tyranny turned out to be Nazi Germany and Communist Russia.

The basic inclination of conservatives is thus to incorporate the basic values of the culture in the intermediary institutions so that there is less need for the coercive powers of government. For conservatives, in particular, there should thus be a concern about the recent problems in almost all of our intermediary institutions. It is hard to think, for example, of any national bank, Wall Street firm, insurance company, or health care company that has not been the subject of very large regulatory penalties. There has been a rather remarkable failure of the elites.

On the other hand, the more secular liberals have been reluctant to address the cultural issues concerning the intermediate institution of the family. The inclination of liberals has also been to raise the cost of government and entitlements even in the presence of an unsustainable national debt and to mortgage the future, thus breaking the contract with the next generation to which Edmund Burke also referred.

Reconsidering the Death Penalty In Ohio

Two of the major reasons often given for abolishing the death penalty are a respect for human dignity and a rejection of such an elective use of violence. Such ideas and ideals are often as important in foreign affairs as military and economic power.

In 2007, 88% of the executions worldwide occurred in China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. This is the company that we keep…

The most powerful psychological tool of tyrannical or totalitarian governments is the use of the death penalty. This does not even have to be pervasive to be persuasive as a threat. In 2007, 88% of the executions worldwide occurred in China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. This is the company that we keep, and they are quick to point to the United States to justify their use of coercive power and the death penalty.

Sixteen states and Washington D.C. have now abolished the death penalty. Internationally 136 out of 195 countries have abolished the death penalty. A country cannot belong to the European Union if it allows the death penalty. New Jersey abolished the death penalty in 2007. Illinois has just abolished the death penalty in 2011 primarily as a result of a series of revelations that 20 people since 1977 in their state had been sent to Death Row who were later exonerated. In the period from 1973 to 2007 there was one Death Row prisoner in the United States who was exonerated for every nine Death Row prisoners who were executed.

There are many reasons to consider abolishing the death penalty in Ohio, but one should keep in mind a global perspective and the importance of ideas and the values behind those ideas. We now live in a pluralistic global community with relatively easy access to weapons of mass destruction. Eliminating the death penalty in Ohio and then eventually in the nation would be a good place to start in addressing the issues related to violence and terrorism in our time.

A major unacknowledged but obvious important conflict in international affairs, for example, is between moderate and radical Muslims, with the radical Muslims being defined as those who are willing to use lethal force based on religion as a means to their ends. This has included stoning women to death for infidelity, honor killings, assassinations for “blasphemy”, executions by the Taliban and al-Qaeda of farmers and journalists for political control, suicide bombings and terrorist attacks. As usual, the ends are used to justify the means. The means, however, define any group as much as the ends, and the means often come to distort the ends. We should do everything we can to focus world opinion on such issues. Abolishing the death penalty in Ohio and then our nation would help to do so. It would also help us understand and convey that the primary moral values in our constitutional democracy include equality understood as a respect for human dignity and our common humanity in addition to freedom.

What Medical Ethics has to Offer the Larger Field of Moral and Political Philosophy

Jobs, the economy,The debt crisis, foreign affairs in the Middle East, and immigration will all be significant issues in 2012 and in the next presidential election. My initial blogs, however, have addressed more fundamental problems about our ability to understand and convey to others our values and the nature of our government. Our primary moral concept is not freedom and our government is not just a democracy.

Jefferson, Madison, Tocqueville, and Lincoln all considered the primary moral concept of our government to be equality.

Jefferson, Madison, Tocqueville, and Lincoln all considered the primary moral concept of our government to be equality. The great reformers such as the women suffragettes and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. did not throw out the moral assertion that “all men are created equal,” but argued based on that principle that we should do a better job of living up to it. Our government is also a constitutional democracy and as such it incorporates both a quantitative procedural aspect of equality by voting on most issues with “one person — one vote.” Our Constitution with the Bill of Rights, however, also contains “higher law” substantive concepts of equality which limit the powers of government and protect individual freedoms and human rights against the possible abuses of simple majority rule. These were also ratified as part of our Constitution. Yet, for the last thirty years there has been almost no mention by academics, the media, or our government of equality understood as a respect for human dignity and our government has been almost always described as a democracy rather than as a constitutional democracy. In both domestic politics and foreign affairs language counts for it helps to shape the climate of opinion. In The Moral Foundations of United States Constitutional Democracy: An Analytical and Historical Inquiry into the Primary Moral Concept of Equality this position is explained and supported.

Medical ethics are also based on a moral assertion of a respect for life understood as a respect for human dignity and our common humanity. Medical ethics also understand human nature to be multi-dimensional with four principles which include autonomy, justice, non-malevolence, and beneficence. The four principle thus include individual (human rights), social (communitarian), logical (utilitarian), and metaphysical (deontological) perspectives.

Not only do medical ethics help us to better understand the primary moral assertion of the “self-evident” concept of equality as both a self-affirmation and an affirmation of our common humanity, but they also provide a very good explanation of the balance of powers in our constitution and our government. This position is explained in the essay What Medical Ethics has to Offer the Larger Fields of Moral and Political Philosophy.

Thomas Jefferson’s wrote the Declaration of Independence in the manner of Euclidian geometry. It’s first moral assertion that “all men are created equal” thus put everything that followed including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in that moral context. A universal moral sense or conscience was for Jefferson a basis of our common humanity and natural equality. Like a muscle of the body, this moral sense has to be developed by exercise, but for Jefferson it was a basis for our common humanity and this included women, American Indians, and blacks. It was what made persons capable of government by consent.

Slavery was the tragic flaw in the founding of our government. Jefferson was a slaveholder and this cannot be dismissed as only a concession to the society in which he lived. It was in his own self-interest and it allowed him to live an aristocratic lifestyle. He thus contributed to this tragedy. Yet, he understood the moral bankruptcy of slavery, its moral incompatibility with democratic government, and the need for its eventual abolition.

Jefferson wrote, “State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.” Fisher Ames, an early congressman from Massachusetts, wrote on the other hand that “I have heard it remarked that men are not to be reasoned out of an opinion they have not reasoned themselves into” The introduction to Moral and Political Philosophy is helpful for understanding many of the nuances and defining ideas of practical moral and political philosophy. A multi-dimensional understanding of human nature brings some coherence to moral and political philosophy. What is important is that the moral concept of equality understood as a respect for human dignity and our common humanity has at least the capacity for accommodation in a pluralistic global community.

Those who approach moral issues from the perspective of human rights, justice, a utilitarian greatest good for the greatest number, or from a metaphysical perspective such as the Golden Rule should all recognize that the underlying principle for each perspectives is that of equality and a respect for human dignity. Those who view politics only from the perspective of power should understand that to place oneself outside of a moral system logically implies that others can do so as well. We should have learned something from the tragedies of the Twentieth Century.

A relevant article from the far center: We grow weary of politics, but politics keeps the planet alive. by Charles Krauthammer

Fisher Ames

In 1795, Fisher Ames, a congressman from Massachusetts, perhaps recognized the indeterminate buy dynamic aspects of our system of government when he compared it to a monarchy in the following way.

“A monarchy”, he said, “is a merchantman which sails well, but will sometimes strike a rock, and go to the bottom; a republic is a raft which will never sink, but then your feet are always in the water.”

Language and Politics — George Orwell

“our economic system … is determined by constitutional and legislative political processes based on equality. ”

As George Orwell observed, totalitarian regimes often distort and invert the truth by corrupting the meaning of words and language. For example, totalitarian communist regimes have, at least in theory, advocated equality as the common ownership of the means of production, but have actually denied political equality as well as the moral agency of other people. Unfortunately, a great deal of intellectual energy has been spent on rebuttal, not by clarifying and defining the several aspects of equality and the moral foundations of our political system, but in attempts to justify capitalism, distributive justice, inequality, and our economic system in an isolated context.

It would be ironic to accept as a premise of public discourse on constitutional democracy the ideology of Marxism which portrays the economic system to be primary to and determinative of the political system, rather than just an integral and interdependent part of society and government. What is important to recognize is that our economic system, for example the extent to which we are a regulated capitalism or a social welfare state, is determined by constitutional and legislative political processes based on equality. Given such political processes based on equality, it is not irrational for a people to recognize defined property rights, reward production and merit, and incorporate several aspects of distributive justice.

I discuss George Orwell’s philosophy on political language in depth in the first chapter of Moral and Political Philosophy (2004).

Equality as an Affirmation of Our Common Humanity

Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much. Public opinion, or any subject, always has a “central idea, from which all its minor thoughts radiate. That “central idea” in our political public opinion, at the beginning was, and until recently has continued to be, “the equality of men.

— Abraham Lincoln 1856

At the time of a clash of civilizations it is not unusual for both sides to re-examine, define, and even sometimes codify their basic values and cultural institutions in order to both preserve and convey their basic values and traditions. At the time of the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe, the United States did this poorly. It appears that we are making a similar mistake in our war against terrorism, which is very much a battle of ideas and ideologies and will have to be understood as such for any chance of a long-term resolution and reconciliation.

When asked about the battle of global ideas, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said “If I were grading, I would say that we probably deserve a D+ as a country.”
– he should know.

We are missing a defining opportunity in the history of the moral and political philosophy of the liberal tradition; first, by not defining our primary moral value as equality, understood as a respect for the dignity and worth of our common humanity; and second, by not defining our government as a constitutional democracy, which is the only way to convey both the substantive and the procedural concepts of equality that it incorporates.

At the time of the fall of communism, the media, the academics, and our government almost universally described the United States as a capitalistic democracy. This was in part because we allowed the Soviet Union to describe their communism to be primarily an economic system rather than a totalitarian political system, which denied any concept of moral or political equality. The primary alternative to communism should have been constitutional democracy. It is the constitutional aspects of our government, such as the Bill of Rights, that incorporate our substantive concepts of equality. The constitutional principles are placed beyond the usual majority rule of the legislative process. It is the democratic aspects of our government that incorporate the procedural aspects of equality, such as “one person, one vote.”

Jefferson, Madison, Tocqueville, and Lincoln all considered equality to be the primary moral principle of constitutional democracy. Since the events of September 11, 2001, however, I cannot recall one instance of even a mention of equality. The terrorist attack of 9/ ll was an attack on both our freedom and security and it is perhaps understandable that our values have thus been described primarily in those terms. In the Declaration of Independence, however, the first premise was that “all men are created equal” and that put everything that followed, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, in a moral context. Even the great reformers, such as the women suffragettes and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., did not repudiate these principles, but urged us to live up to them and place them into practice.

Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, was recently asked how the United States was faring against the extremist ideology in the global “battle of ideas.” He said, “If I were grading, I would say that we probably deserve a D+ as a country.” We are indeed in a “battle of ideas”, in part, with a radical version of Islam. Islam, the religion of 1.2 billion people, is based on a submission to the will of God. Much of the liberty that we convey, on the other hand, is seen by others as the self-indulgence of our culture. We also unnecessarily lost much of the moral high ground with our initial waffling on the issues of torture and human rights.

During the current war on terrorism it may be appropriate that we emphasize freedom. To achieve our objectives we will also need the cooperation of many countries that are not constitutional democracies. To win the peace, however, we will need to understand and convey that our primary moral value is universal equality. It is such a recognition of our common humanity in a pluralistic world that makes the accommodation of a wide variety of attributes, cultural differences, desires, and beliefs possible without the use of coercion or being the cause of alienation.

James H. Rutherford, M.D.
Author of Moral and Political Philosophy

United States Constitutional Democracy and American Exceptionalism

Most nations have been historically based on a common ethnicity, language, religion, or history. The recent Constitution of the Maldives, for example, grants citizenship only to Muslims. In contrast to this, Seymour Martin Lipset, in the summary chapter of his book American Exceptionalism (1996), quoted from my own work, Moral and Political Philosophy, noting that in the United States: “The free and equal individual with moral responsibility is the basis of communal solidarity.”

In April, 2009, Barack Obama missed the historical point of American Exceptionalism when he stated:

“I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

Jefferson, Madison, Tocqueville, Lincoln, and the great reformers such as the women suffragettes and the Rev, Martin Luther King, Jr. all considered equality to be the primary moral concept of our government. Our democracy incorporates a quantitative concept of equality with ‘“one person — one vote.” It is the Constitution with the Bill of Rights, however, that incorporates qualitative and substantive concepts of freedom and equality that protect the individual from the possible abuses of majority rule. Even the Constitution, however, can be amended by a super-majority of two-thirds of the Congress and three-fourths of the states. Concerning this ability of a super-majority to change the Constitution and the the Bill of Rights, James Madison thus wrote that he hoped the Bill of Rights “might acquire by degree the character of fundamental maxims of free government, and as they become incorporated into the national sentiment, counteract the impulses of interest and passion.”

It would help us to both understand and convey our values if our government officials, the media, and academics began to refer to our moral concepts as including both equality and freedom, our government as a constitutional democracy, and American exceptionalism as being based at least historically on the free and equal individual with moral responsibility as the basis of our communal solidarity. This was unique or "exceptional" at the time of our founding.

James H. Rutherford, M.D.
moralfoundations.com

Universal Equality

In 1856, before his presidency or the beginning of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln said:

Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much. Public opinion, or [on?] any subject, always has a “central idea,” from which all its minor thoughts radiate. That “central idea” in our political public opinion, at the beginning was, and until recently has continued to be, “the equality of men.” (Basler 1953, vol. II, 385; see also Jaffa 1982, chap. XIV).

A few years ago we celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the Statute of Liberty, and many would consider liberty, or freedom, as the fundamental moral concept on which our government was founded. Freedom, however, has little meaning outside of one’s moral concept of justice.

“It is indeed the self-imposed ethical or moral foundations of government that change mere obedience to the coercive powers of government into a sense of consensual responsibility for a moral duty, a just order, the common good, or human rights. ”

Freedom can mean, simply license, the absence of any social obligation or moral constraint. Being a free moral agent does not necessarily mean that one will choose to be moral. Freedom does not address the need to maintain order, establish justice, or provide for the general welfare. Nor does freedom provide much protection from the coercive powers of government unless it means “liberty for all” (Basler 1953, vol. IV, 168–69). Indeed, what we often desire is freedom from the arbitrary will of others.

Morality, on the other hand, provides a context of responsibility for freedom. Morality even implies a degree of freedom of choice and, to the extent of that freedom, responsibility. Freedom by itself implies a type of existential or subjective responsibility but not necessarily any other type of moral acknowledgement. When Jefferson put forth the ideals of our country in the Declaration of Independence, his first assertion, his primary self-evident truth, was that “all men are created equal.” The unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were thus put within an ethical context of equality and reciprocity. Jefferson and Lincoln both understood universal equality to be the primary moral concept of American constitutional democracy.

Others have also understood universal equality to be the primary moral concept. Marvin Meyers in his book on James Madison, The Mind of the Founder, concluded that, “in Madison’s view of man,” equality was the fundamental term (1981, xxii). Alexis de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America (1835–1840), “advanced the influential thesis that equality is the fundamental theme and characteristic of American civilization” (Davis 1990, 11).

Alexis de Tocqueville

Tocqueville noted that even tyrants value freedom, but only for themselves. He also understood that equality is not an extrinsic leveling term but conveys an inherent mutual respect which also implies an equality of political freedom. David Brion Davis, a prominent historian of the institution of slavery, has even concluded that the real anthesis of slavery is not freedom but equality (Davis 1990, 29). Even the great reformers, such as the women suffragettes and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., did not repudiate these principles, but urged us to live up to them and place them into practice.

G. K. Chesteron wrote, however, that the belief in human equality is not “some crude fairy tale about all men being equally tall or equally tricky” (see McWilliams 1979,184). It is not like a Procrustean bed of Greek mythology into which all persons are forced to fit by stretching them on a rack or cutting off their legs. For Jefferson, universal equality was instead a moral assertion—an assertion that affirmed both his own humanity and his own individuality against tyranny. Using fable and analogy, in the manner of George Orwell, one could say that if you are a mallard and don’t like ducks or duckhood, then there is going to be an inherent problem with your own self-affirmation by definition. This is one sense in which Jefferson’s assertion that “all men are created equal” could be considered a self-evident truth. It is an affirmation of our own humanity.

It is this recognition of his own humanity, however, that allowed Jefferson to also assert his own individuality, not by a will to power and coercion, but by inverting that to a resistance to the tyranny of others. By recognizing the moral agency of others, as well as asserting our own mature responsible personality, there opens up the possibility of deciding political issues by the deliberation of democratic constitutional and legislative processes, rather than by simple coercion, domination, or privilege.

The future of American government still rests on public opinion. It rests on our understanding and support for the moral foundations of constitutional democracy and our ability to communicate and preserve such an understanding effectively. This is important, for the enjoyment of individual freedom and the progress of human liberty are not inevitable. They are contingent, to a large degree, on our willingness and ability as moral agents to place our free will within ethical constraints. It is indeed the self-imposed ethical or moral foundations of government that change mere obedience to the coercive powers of government into a sense of consensual responsibility for a moral duty, a just order, the common good, or human rights. In United States constitutional democracy these ethical concepts all relate historically to the “central idea” of universal equality.

Complete Essay with references from my book, Moral and Political Philosophy.