In a former life, this
writer taught the high school course, American Government. And before the term or course began, he knew
that one lesson was already lodged into his schedule. That lesson would be toward the beginning of
the term, and it was noted as the “political spectrum” lesson.
He would draw on the board a single horizontal line and
that image was to communicate a continuum.
Vertically, he would place a line in the middle. Then going to the right, more or less at
equal distances, he would add three more vertical lines with the last one at
the end of the horizontal line. The same
would go to the left of the middle line.
Below these vertical lines, he would entitle each.
The middle line would be titled neutral and/or
moderate. Then going right, each of the
lines, in turn, would be titled conservativism, nationalism, and fascism/Nazism. To the left of the middle, the titles liberalism,
socialism, and communism would be placed.
Surely, recurring readers of
this blog will know to what all this refers; i.e., the right, to increasing
degrees, indicates belief in conservatism (belief in traditional, national
values) to increasing degrees of intensity.
Left of center, one has belief in liberal/progressive values (belief in
social/economic/political experimentation or change). As to the “extreme” terms at the ends of the
horizontal line, they indicate approaching and then arriving at totalitarian rule,
as exhibited by Hitler’s rule in Germany or Communist Party rule (especially
under Stalin) in the Soviet Union.
This former teacher, during
the lesson, would indicate how the American population was distributed along
this graph with a bell-shaped curve.
This curve sort of explained why the US has a two-party system. It’s a math thing. He would toward the end of the lesson
superimpose a curve with a number of “bumps,” the bumps growing in height as it
approached short of and just beyond the center of the horizontal but with the
curve almost at zero point in the moderate or neutral range. This would demonstrate why Europe has
multi-party arrangements.
Another point was made,
that as one found oneself toward the extremes, one would be more motivated to
be involved in politics and to even secure more claimed knowledge about it
(symbolized on the graph with plus signs and minus signs). Of course, this described amounts of knowledge
acquisition did not insure one was open to true knowledge.
As one observes among
Americans today, that attraction could very well be toward desired
“knowledge.” Of course, such affected people
are subject to propaganda lies or misunderstandings if those beliefs further
support established biases. Today, by
the way, the role that social media plays in promulgating such misinformation
is well documented.
This political spectrum can
be applied to political populations from around the world, and if one were to go
online and inquire the term “political spectrum,” one would find more involved
representations of this distribution of political sentiment. But all this is offered here as merely
context.
Daniel J. Elazar offers a
spectrum of sorts that distributes American political thinking and
sentiments. He doesn’t use the term
spectrum, but as with the spectrum described above, his terms can be (and are
described) as points on a continuum. His
terms are “individualism,” “collectivism,” “corporatism,” and “federalism.” This posting will begin an overview of his
“spectrum” by describing the first of these terms, individualism. But his offering begs the questions, why
offer this set and why are they offered in the order they are described?
In way of answering these
concerns, he writes:
American history can be
understood as a struggle between four major orientations toward the
relationship between the individual and civil society (that by-now-slightly
archaic early modern term which conveys so well the way in which all
comprehensive societies necessarily have a political form and the way all good
societies keep that political form from becoming all-embracing totalitarian).[1]
He further points out that
each of the terms refers to a political tradition in American culture that
stretches back to the nation’s beginning.
While Elazar makes the case that the last view, federalism, was dominant
during all those years, the other three can find their American origins during
the nation’s founding.
And with that introduction, he begins a rundown of these
terms beginning with individualism. Of
the four, individualism is probably the best known and most talked about. According to this writer, it is dominant
today, but Elazar thought otherwise.
This despite the fairly shared opinion that America, through the years,
has been probably one of the most individualistic nations in the world.
As such, they are categorized as Lockean men and
women. Each is pictured as a solitary
entity contracting him/herself with other solitary actors through the
arrangements spelled out in contracts – legally recognized agreements which are
specific in their elements and reflecting transactional obligations. Within these agreements an assumed motivation
of self-interest prevails.
With such a basic understanding, the role of government is
limited to protecting the rights of each actor to be so engaged freely and hampered
only by limitations that would undermine the actualization of such a
system. For example, that government
would legitimately issue laws and accompanying policing powers to make robbery
punishable upon being found guilty of such behavior.
Short of such actions, individualism
leads to a reality in which those who are most successful in the entailed
competition of interests, can exert more influence – the rich tend to rule. History provides sufficient evidence to this
consequence when individualism is dominant.
American history offers such evidence and, one can argue, no less
evidence than what the more recent years has demonstrated since the
individualistic bias of the prevailing Reagan policy era which started in the
1980s still prevails.
Today, as a consequence,
one reads such headlines as “Top 1% of U.S. Households Hold 15 Times More Wealth
Than Bottom 50% Combined.”[2] Along with this level of what many consider irresponsibility
by the rich and others, is the psychological reaction to this “everyone is
his/her own domain.” That is a
resulting, prevalent levels of alienation among the American populous.
As individualism increases
and has been dominant since the years after World War II, there have been
increased cases of anti-social activities and personal depression that one
associates with an alienated social environment.[3] Interestingly, even the staunches
individualists do seem to make exceptions to this more general view by allowing
for kinship and friendships. Some of
this can be found in the most individualistic hobs of social life, those being country
clubs, fraternities/sororities on colleges campuses, and religious
congregations, parishes, or temples (although this last religious category is
not noted for being so individualistic).
The next posting will move
on to collectivism – admittedly, a big conceptual jump from individualism. But one should keep in mind that this
individualism does not lose its influence as one might be caught up in collectivist,
corporative, and even federalist allegiances.
[1]
Daniel J. Elazar, “How Federal Is the
Constitution? Thoroughly,” in a booklet of readings, Readings for Classes Taught by Professor Elazar, prepared for a
National Endowment for the Humanities Institute (conducted in Steamboat
Springs, Colorado, 1994), 1-30, 12.
[2] Tommy Beer, “Top 1% of U.S. Households hold 15 Times More Wealth Than Bottom 50%
Combined,” Forbes (October 8, 2020), accessed April 9, 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/10/08/top-1-of-us-households-hold-15-times-more-wealth-than-bottom-50-combined/?sh=506a9c815179
.
[3]
For example, “Alienation,” Healthline (n.d.), accessed April 9, 2021, https://www.healthline.com/health/alienation
.
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