(more on musical form soon, if anyone is interested)
If we take it for granted that the unity of a morally divided political body is worth working for, and that the remedy for moral division is the development of broad-mindedness, how should we inculcate this virtue in the people? I believe that we have seen the failure of simply expounding this principle by direct promulgation (preaching to schoolchildren), narrative exempla with the moral readily extractable (the after-school special), and habitual disapproval of anything smelling even faintly of "fundamentalism" (passim). Ask around and I'm sure it won't take you long to find someone who will affirm for you the absolute necessity of transcending one's own perspective while they themselves can demonstrate no idea of anyone else's. The political party which in America currently fuels itself with the sentiment (you know what I'm talking about by now, if you've been following the current administration's practice of "bipartisanship") satisfies itself and its constituents with emphatic (no doubt sincere) pronouncements of it--while often evidencing no greater understanding of their rivals' principles than their rivals do of theirs. Getting a moral principle into people's heads gets them no closer to principled moral behavior. Broad-mindedness in particular becomes nothing more than an especially stupid narrow-mindedness when it makes its way into politics by way of an explicit concept.
But didn't Joseph Addison notch down the rancor of the political rhetoric of early eighteenth century England, and encourage a common ethic of tolerance, by teaching the people to read John Locke? It seems he did. But close examination of the methods by which Addison influenced the people, and of his explications and clarifications of Locke's thinking, reveals the incommensurability of his success with Lockean principles of education.
More to follow.
This post should be published somewhere.
ReplyDeleteWell, we are being bipartisan about being bipartisan. Substantially, is there anything that broadmindedness can possibly mean? Is it a system of conduct (and if so what is it about this system the makes "bipartisanship" a better heading than "courtesy"), or a process whereby both sides agree to implement Democratic policy, or Republican policy, or both, and if both what, or who, is the third entity that decides what it is we are to be bipartisan about from one time to the next? Of course, what the current administration seems to be offering by way of substance, as you point out so well, turns out to be little more than a state of mind and engagement which has been prominent in the American Academy for the better part of forty or fifty years. One can smell it a hundred miles off. There's no need for definition when the mere sound of certain stock vocables may be relied upon to set off a pandemic response. Indeed, the inculcators have assumed seats of power, and those who would least suspect it (they themselves? --to a degree, I think yes) are under their spell. Is this the natural end of a nation whose substantial tradition has been in its non-traditionalists? The economy may be fixed, but until there is something behind the decisions that fix it which touches every citizen with a new self-actualizing power and liberty, we will remain a people unworthy of our tradition.
"The economy may be fixed, but until there is something behind the decisions that fix it which touches every citizen with a new self-actualizing power and liberty, we will remain a people unworthy of our tradition."
ReplyDeleteIn other words, we have lost the American economy as soon as we relinquish the responsibility of fixing it ourselves, one by one.
Rainscape, arguing against government intervention in the economy, one gave this speech (or something like it): "If there's something to be done about the economy, then we should all pack up our briefcases, go out, and do it. And if not, we should stay home and study Greek."
Well, when I get high-flown like that I have visions of things like ten million Walt Whitmans. But as a matter of fact no one wants that, least of all me. Greek will do. What it's really going to take is some generation or other having the humility and prescience to say, "We must give our children something we have lacked--an education which may save our democracy."
ReplyDeleteAccording to Saul Bellow, Allan Bloom's thematic question to his students was: "With what, in this modern liberal democracy, will you meet the demands of your soul?" A lot of that included studying Greek, but there are debates between neo- and paleo- and other conservatives about the political and economic effect of the work of Bloom's students. It's dangerous to urge ambitious and intellectual movers and shakers to meet the demands of their souls (that is, they didn't stay home). Studying Rome is probably better for American politics.
ReplyDelete