After presenting and
describing the application of Eugene Meehan’s criteria for appraising social
science theories and models,[1] the
last posting addressed the challenge of diversity and how it affects the
isomorphism of the liberated federalism model.
For readers who want to read those accounts, they are directed to the
online site, http://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/,[2] and review the last four
postings.
Given the complexity that the last posting reported, it
does not complete this account’s comments concerning diversity and isomorphism. In addition, there is the need to describe
how excessive individualism, an ongoing malady of American life, [3]
influences the diversity issue and demands yet another type of toleration
within the nation’s collective social make-up.
This country is not only
a pluralism of groups but also a pluralism of individuals, its regime of
toleration is focused, as we have seen on personal choices and lifestyles
rather than on common ways of life. It
is perhaps the most individualist society in human history … “we are free to do
our own thing.”[4]
But “doing your own thing” takes financial
resources which many immigrant groups, in many cases, have in short supply.
The
poorer groups often lead the nation to be the noisiest – in most cases,
legitimately so – about maintaining their cultural identity by engaging in
political processes. As the groups
establish themselves, they become Americanized because the political processes
have their effects. The debate in the
nation is whether to insist on a single, nativist approach (“Make America Great
Again”), one in which a hegemony of dominant culture prevails, or one that
tolerates or even encourages diverse cultural lifestyles.
Walzer gives one element of this debate a
positive spin, he writes:
… [D]emocratic politics itself, where all the
members of all the groups are (in principle) equal citizens who have not only
to argue with one another but they also somehow, to come to an agreement. What they learn in the course of the
necessary negotiations and compromises is probably more important than anything
they might get from studying the canon.
We need to think about how this practical, democratic learning can be
advanced.[5]
In the process of learning the lessons, great
benefits are gained by immigrants belonging to associations: “Individuals are stronger, more confident,
more savvy, when they are participants in a common life, when they are
responsible to and for other people.”[6]
In so claiming, Walzer agrees with one of the main
points of this account, that federating themselves with others, in the long
run, benefits these people’s interests by doing so. That is, communal allegiances in associations
and neighborhoods would do much to stem the tide of divorces, single parent homes,
child abuse, abandonment, decline in membership in unions, homelessness and
increase the future fates of churches, parent-teacher organizations, and philanthropic
societies.
A federalist model, then, has a definite correspondence
to these segments of reality. The
judgment here is that that demonstrates how granular the model can be and,
therefore, demonstrates its isomorphism.
The next posting will address the model’s compatibility.
[1] Namely by reviewing
comprehensiveness, power, precision, and reliability. See Eugene J.
Meehan, Contemporary Political Thought:
A Critical Study (Homewood, IL:
Dorsey Press, 1967).
[2] Use the archives feature. If readers want to read the blog’s
presentation of the liberated federalism model, they should start with the
posting, “From Natural Rights to Liberated Federalism”
(June 2, 2023).
[3] Jean M. Twenge, Generations: The Real Differences between Gen Z,
Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents – and What They Mean for America’s
Future (New York, NY: Atria Books, 2023). It should be noted that individualism is not
all bad. It has its positive elements,
but here the concern is with excessive individualism.
[4] Michael Walzer, On Toleration (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 100.
[5] Ibid., 97.
[6] Ibid., 97.
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