WE ARE ALL IN THIS SANS TOGETHERNESS

 

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.

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[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 .

FORMATION OF PARTNERSHIPS

 

The last posting reported that during the lifetime of the first generation of settlers in the New England colonial area a religious debate developed.  That contention pitted those who idealized religiosity being the product of the intellect as opposed to being more passionately based as expressions of the will.  The purpose of this posting is to contextualize the debate as one that did not challenge the basic federalist landscape that the colonists established under their covenantal arrangement.

          This landscape is described by Daniel Elazar,

 

Indeed, it is the development of the social, economic and constitutional as well as the political bases of American federalism in the colonial period that created the federalist political culture which influenced the framers of the Constitution to invent the federal system.  As in every other aspect of American life, the colonial background was crucial.  It was within the five generations of American colonial history that the basis was laid for a covenantal federalism.  Indeed, it was so well laid that Americans have taken it utterly for granted and have virtually ignored it ever since.[1]

 

This posting describes how this general relationship between federal thinking and the evolvement of basic social institutions among these settlers took form.  It is through institutional arrangements that one can detect and to a degree measure the attributes of a people’s culture, including its political culture.  One can term these arrangements as the “roots” of a culture and of its various components.

          Elazar focuses his commentary on the settlers’ economy, social structures and processes (along with their functions), and the religious elements.  One of the first points Elazar makes is that one can trace these developments all the way back to the Mayflower Compact (1620) and that he cites that document as an example of a covenant.  Why?  It is an agreement that situates its signees to unite in order to seek common purposes but with the understanding that each signee retains his/her “respective integrity.”[2]

          To further contextualize this development, one should keep in mind that among the colonies, there were countless expressions of unity.  They committed the involved participants to establish, maintain, and/or assume united efforts.  They were numerous covenants and compacts that the colonists drew up and agreed to from the time of the Mayflower Compact to the US Constitution[3] – and beyond in the years of this nation’s history.  They, the agreements, affected the behavior of colonists, but also affected their formation of their ideals – a reciprocal relationship.

          As for the economy, what federal/covenantal attributes can one detect?  There, one can find that British and Dutch trading companies were organized around federal elements.  They were royal entities that enjoyed monopolistic advantage, but they were also set up as shareholder ownership arrangements which, in turn, controlled their business operations. 

Often, these shareholders attempted to control their operations from Europe, but this eventually failed due to the long distances involved in handling the inherent politics.  There were exceptions in that in some limited cases the shareholders were themselves settlers.   Usually, these actors were politically influential individuals in the respective settlements who in addition to their political power also enjoyed economic power as well.  But the point is that this shareholder structure reinforced a federal model of organization. 

The organization of trading ships also provides an example.  On those ships, the typical organization had crew members sign up not merely as simple employees.  They instead signed a ship’s articles.  Through that instrument, these members agreed to submit to the ship’s authority, which was ultimately in the person of the captain, in exchange for an agreed upon portion of the ship’s profits.  This model interestingly reappeared in American history in the way wagon trains were organized as they made their way westward.  Each of these examples were incidents of efforts being arranged through the instrument of a compact.

Important to consider or recognize in these arrangements, is that the path leading to the necessary collaborative effort was this essential step in forming an agreement that held a level of sanctity (either religiously or securely based).  So, one would think that this model would apply to religious entities.  Did it?  Yes, and initially, as this blog has reported, that tie-in started with the Puritans. 

And, in turn, that Puritanical mode of organization can be traced to the biblical accounts of the Jewish covenant with God.  This is further cited due to the essential attributes that characterized those covenants.  While this agreement was believed to be with an all-powerful entity, God, the signees retained their integrity. 

Why?  Because only a sufficiently free agent can enter into a meaningful agreement.  While this calls on God to forsake a degree of His omnipotence, the resulting agreement is established as a partnership in its truest sense.  It also sets a foundation for human freedom since only a free person can enter into a true partnership.

Extending this basic relationship, therefore, one can deduce that all social or political arrangements derived their legitimacy from this basic covenant between humans and God, or in this case, the settlers and God.  Practically, this sets up the formation of congregations, townships, and more inclusive political/governmental arrangements all the way up to what would become state governments and the national government as well.

Okay, that might have happened in New England, how about in the other colonies farther south?  Elazar reports that roughly half of the churches established in the other colonies followed this congregational model.  In addition, he states that a significant number of townships were so organized. 

One area where this was commonly true was Virginia where Puritans had a clear presence.  Elazar writes, “Even after the eighteenth century secularization of the covenant idea, the camps of southwestern Missouri, central Colorado and the mother lode country of California, or in the agricultural settlements of the upper Midwest.”[4]  He goes on to describe how this prevalence led to an ideal, that of “federalistic individualism” (which this account will call “federal individualism”).

This individualism parts from what Elazar designates as Latin individualism which he describes as anarchic.  Instead, this individualism recognizes agreed to limitations on individual prerogatives so as to abide by covenantal or compact-al provisions.  But even in this, the individual retains his/her integrity.  What ideally results are subtle bonds of partnership. 

This holds that despite the challenges a diverse population presents to such bonds, this writer concludes that through waves of immigration, for example, a centered (to the elements of this partnership) pluralism should hold among the American people.[5]  This is a fairly nuanced ideal, but it is central to federalist thought.

Within this theorized construct one can detect and Elazar provides a functional definition for federalism.  It is:

 

… American pluralism is based upon the tacit recognition of those bonds.  Even though in the twentieth century the term pluralism has replaced all others in describing them, their federal character remains of utmost importance.  At its best, American society becomes a web of individual and communal partnerships in which people link with one another to accomplish common purposes or to create a common environment without falling into collectivism or allowing individualism to degenerate into anarchy.  These links usually manifest themselves in the web of associations which we associate with modern society but which are particularly characteristic of covenanted societies such as that of the United States.[6]

 

And with this last claim, unfortunately, this writer parts company with Elazar. 

Until his death, he claimed that in a dominant position of influence, if somewhat or significantly tacit, the US retained this ideal, which he and others call federalism.  This writer also calls it federalism but does not agree that it has retained its dominant position.  That change occurred in the years following World War II and what is dominant today is the natural rights construct.

But that is not to say all those years in which federalism was dominant did not leave its mark.  For example, much of what is described in this posting might seem necessary for a nation to be sufficiently cohesive.  The next posting will offer other ways to go about establishing and maintaining a polity.  This is deemed as important because what federalism offers seems, especially to Americans, often to be the only option available to a people.

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[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, 9.

[2] This aspect is very important in theorizing the attributes of federation theory.  To consider this aspect, the reader is directed to read this blogger’s book, Toward a Federated Nation and its description of regulated equality.  In turn, he counts on the arguments of Philip Selznick.  See Robert Gutierrez, Toward a Federated Nation:  Implementing National Civics Standards (Tallahassee, FL:  Gravitas/Civics Books, 2020) AND Philip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1992).

[3] Donald S. Lutz (ed.), Colonial Origins of the American Constitution:  A Documentary History (Indianapolis, IN:  Liberty Fund,1998).

[4] Elazar, “How Federal Is the Constitution? Thoroughly,” 10.

[5] See Robert Gutierrez, “A Case for Centered Pluralism,” Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue 5, 1 (2003), 71-82.

[6] Elazar, “How Federal Is the Constitution? Thoroughly,”, 11 (emphasis added).