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6. AMERICA COMES OF AGE

AMERICA CULTIVATES NEW SOCIAL FORMULAS

CONTENTS

"Democracy" as the new social cure-all

John Dewey

American "Liberalism"

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The 16th and 17th Amendments to the Constitution

Power Problems

The textual material on this webpage is drawn directly from my work
        America's Story – A Spiritual Journey © 2021, pages 192-198.
"DEMOCRACY" AS THE NEW SOCIAL CURE-ALL

By the beginning of the 20th century, Americans had forgotten that the Constitutional Framers of 1787 had created a Republic of precise laws derived from the disciplines and dictates of America's pre-existing and quite long-standing social foundations.  Those Framers of the American Constitution had no intentions whatsoever to put in place a newly conceived democracy of popular political wills, wills easily maneuvered this way and that by clever demagogues.  The Athenian example had made it clear to the Framers that this was to be carefully avoided.

Under the rules of the Constitution, the people would have their voice in the House of Representatives.  But that voice would have to work with – or be checked by – the U.S. Senate, where the states would send their very best "ambassadors" to represent the interests of the various states –individuals chosen by the state legislatures (as per the Constitution itself).  The president would likewise be elected by representatives of the states as special electors (not by the American people themselves) and the federal judges would be appointed for life by the president, subject to the confirmation vote of the Senate (not the House of Representatives) as would also be diplomats and other executive officers.  The United States was intended to be a republic, not a democracy.

But a Rousseauian spirit – similar to what had led the French to their suicidal Revolution in the late 1700s – was overtaking America around the turn into the 20th century.  A very Romantic vision about the basic goodness of man – and the corruption of traditional social orders – seemed to infect the thinking of the West's intellectuals, in America as well as Europe.  Of course such Humanism was not new to the West – nor to America, which had gone through waves of such "enlightenment" already several times since its birth three centuries earlier.

Actually, "democracy" was taking its place in American hearts as something of a religion – closely related to the new nationalist thinking that was sweeping hearts away in the Western world.  Democracy was a religion that believed as its central article of its faith that "natural" man was by all instincts an angel.  According to this Humanist or "democratic" religion, traditional social orders (built on long habit) were keeping that angelic character suppressed, forcing human behavior to become desperate ... even criminal.  Crime was a by-product of social injustice, not just a matter of breaking the law.  Society thus needed to be reformed, its ancient laws changed, new freedoms offered to the people, and happiness would finally reign as the angelic potential in man finally revealed itself.

This was quite a different religion than Christianity, which believed in faith in God, not faith in man, as the way that life took on its glory.  The Puritans had built their entire social order on that Christian belief.

But now that belief was being replaced by the idea that man himself – not God – would ultimately be the source of such earthly glory.  All that was needed was social reform – led importantly by those who knew how to bring the best out of the people themselves.  These select reformers would supposedly not be self-interested, scheming demagogues.  These would be the ones enlightened by the new ideas and doctrines coming out as the world entered the 20th century, doctrines that surely had "science" to back them up as being the ultimate Truth in life.  All that was needed now was to trust fully the Russian Bolsheviks, the German nationalists, the Washington Progressivists, etc. who had the people's best interests at heart as they pushed for deep social reform (even Revolution if need be).  These enlightened ones were supposedly working out of the purest and highest of motives as they pushed for mankind's ultimate success.

So forget tradition, change the laws (deeply if need be), and just trust the wisdom of the reformers – who were advancing (from the loftier heights of their writing desks) their various social theories as "democracy."

JOHN DEWEY

America certainly had its own well-known voices of such "democratic" social reform.  One such popular voice was that of John Dewey, an American educator whose writings had a huge impact not only in the growing world of educational philosophy – but on the way Americans moved to a more Humanist or "Liberal" understanding of life itself.  Like Rousseau, Dewey believed that under all the social structuring that a person goes through in his or her development there is a basic, instinctive goodness in the human design, one that should be allowed to develop apart from society's mere traditions, traditions which included bad social habits built up willy-nilly over the generations.  Real human progress necessitated a thorough social house cleaning.  And the best way to get that done is through enlightened or Liberal instruction of the youth, who had not yet fallen into the habit of doing things simply because it was the tradition to do things this way or that.  The youth represented the best material for building a very progressive future.[1]

Dewey graduated from the University of Vermont in 1879 and found a job teaching high school in Pennsylvania for two years before returning to Vermont to teach at a primary school there.  But he recognized rather immediately that he would rather study the philosophy of education than actually engage in it, in the elementary/secondary classroom at least.  Thus he headed off to graduate school (Johns Hopkins University), got his doctorate and then took a teaching position with the University of Michigan's philosophy department.  He moved on from there to additional teaching positions, in 1889 becoming chairman of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago (1894), where he began to write and publish his social-educational theories.  In 1904 he moved on to Columbia University in New York City, and continued to write even more extensively on education, society, human psychology, and social ethics.

His philosophy was standard Humanist theory:  social environment determines human behavior; reform the environment in very practical ways and you will reform human behavior.  He also, like so many intellectuals of his generation, believed that democracy was the proper formula for solving society's problems (though critics were quick to point out that he never really explained how democracy was supposed to work in a mass society). He might not have stood out from the intellectual crowd, except that his massive number of publications made him a well-recognized leader in the rising Humanist movement underway in America (he published some 40 books and over 700 articles in his lifetime).

After retiring from Columbia, Dewey continued over the next twenty years to be very active in promoting his Secular (even atheistic) Humanist philosophy, taking a position in 1929 on the board of the Humanist Society of New York, then being one of the composers of the 1933 Humanist Manifesto, and an avid writer and lecturer on the subject thereafter.

And he (and his legacy) would continue after him to help direct the country's rising Liberal intellectualism in its battle against America's long-standing moral-spiritual foundations in the Christian faith.

[1]Enacting deep social change by taking over the education of a future generation is not a new thing.  Back in the 1600s, the Jesuits understood quite well the importance of taking charge of the education of the young, in order to build a purer "Catholic" world.  And the Chinese dictator Mao Zedong more recently (1960s) undertook deep "cultural revolution" in China the same way.

AMERICAN "LIBERALISM"

This aiming at America's youth seemed like a very good approach to social progress by those who were calling themselves "Liberals."  They intended to "liberate" future generations from imperfect, even "failed," social tradition – to free them up to follow much better social paths, ones laid out for them of course by their enlightened mentors, their Progressive teachers and professors.

But where Liberalism became truly ironic was in the way it looked increasingly to the federal state to take the lead in changing the laws that tradition had put in place.  What is interesting is that the word "Liberal" in the European context meant almost the opposite of what it was coming to mean in America.  European Liberalism was founded on the fear of an overly aggressive State, one that took on dictatorial powers in order to force its political interests on its subject people.  "Liberal" meant to cut back – to "liberate" the people from, not expand – the powers of the state, an idea that the American Framers of the Constitution understood quite well themselves back in the 1780s after having gone through what they had experienced in their recent war of independence against an overbearing British king.

But now American Liberalism proposed to enhance the powers of the federal or national state (just like Lenin's State Socialism) because the federal state was considered by American Liberals as the country's best locus for enlightened power, such as would be able to put into place true social progress (the reformers' own programs, of course).

In Europe such Liberalism would go by the name of Socialism – a term that in America would long remain taboo.[2]  But under the cover of careful labeling, the policies of both American Liberalism and European Socialism actually had/have pretty much the same ambition:  to let "enlightened" national authorities take the reins of power (social powers taken away from not only the states of Massachusetts, Ohio, Kansas, etc., but also local town councils, school boards and churches, and even fathers and mothers) if you want to see social progress truly blossom.

[2]That is, until Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders came along in the 2010s/2020s and ran a nearly successful campaign for the Democratic Party presidential candidacy in 2016 on a self-proclaimed Socialist platform!

SUPREME COURT JUSTICE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, Jr.

Adding considerably to this rising "Liberal" attitude was a very scholarly Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., whose legal writings and Supreme Court decisions (often in dissent of the Court's majority decisions) would shape this rising understanding of proper political-legal dynamics strongly.

Holmes was a well-born product of a prominent Bostonian family, like his father, Harvard educated and close friends with prominent philosopher-writers such as the transcendentalist Emerson and the James brothers, William and Henry, Jr., and both something of philosopher-writers themselves, father and son.  But it was military duty in the Civil War – Holmes enlisted in 1861 just as he was graduating from Harvard (and just as the war was starting up), seeing action in numerous battles, and suffering also numerous wounds as a result – that would shape his social-legal philosophy deeply.  As he would see things, such sacrificial social service opened his eyes to the world of political realism ... and thus the need for the legal system to keep up with such realism.  Thus he entitled his legal philosophy "Legal Realism."

Appointed by Roosevelt to the Supreme Court in 1902, Holmes quickly proved himself to be strongly opposed to the idea of there being some kind of permanent, universal set of legal standards (especially those designed by an unseen deity) that should serve unchangingly from generation to generation.[3]  He detested such Legal Idealism (or what today would be termed Legal Originalism).

To Holmes, life changed constantly ... and so did society's particular challenges.  And it was the responsibility of the law, even the most fundamental law, to keep up with such changes.  And how was it to do so?  That was the job of politicians ... especially court judges, on whose shoulders fell the responsibility of finding true moral legal principles – in the way they were required constantly to make decisions on the basis of multiple facts and evolving social issues.  But through dutiful training and actual experience, such wisdom could be expected of those given such responsibility.

In short, it was up to the wiser elements of society (like Holmes himself, for instance) to define, or redefine, even the most fundamental law as they went along.  And so the "Liberal" theory of "democracy from above" got a tremendous push from this very notable 20th century legal philosopher.[4]

[3]Actually, he had expressed this view quite clearly in an earlier collection of his lectures and legal writing published in book form in 1881 as The Common Law

[4]Unfortunately, such "Realist" (or Liberal or Progressive) views as Holmes's seem quite ignorant of the fact that there is more to goodness and truth than an individual's – especially a very "enlightened" individual's – own personal inclination to see things as he or she does.

Too much of just such enlightenment was the problem confronting the 55 delegates who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 to draft a Constitution for the new American Union.  Each of the delegates had his own good idea (like Holmes) as to how things should go, and argued endlessly.

Finally, Franklin took them above their own logic, their own reasoning, to have them put their thoughts before God, and also to listen to each other.  Then and only then were they able to get past their personal wisdoms to find a higher truth, one requiring them to let go of their personal takes on matters.<

What those 55 men finally secured is incredible wisdom, wisdom of a very lasting variety.

Those that constantly want to reform that wisdom (with their own enlightened ideas of course) threaten to undermine that wonderful legacy.  And thus Franklin's statement, "A Republic, if you can keep it."  He understood full well the dangers that "wise men" would bring to the American Republic in their efforts to "upgrade" that incredible constitutional achievement.  As Franklin knew full well, constant effort to upgrade the famous Roman Republic was what had finally destroyed it.

THE 16th AND 17th AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION

Along with this went also two new Amendments to the American Constitution, changing deeply the way social power had long been shaped in federal America.

The Sixteenth Amendment awarded the federal authorities in Washington the power to tax directly the American people – at the time thought to offer Washington authorities no more than a small supplement to the fees, licenses, etc. that it collected in order to run its operations.  There was little understanding at the time that this opened the door for Washington eventually to lay huge taxes on the American people and their economy – in order to run its various programs presumably designed to better America.

The Seventeenth Amendment also involved a huge reshaping of the American Constitution's checks and balances system when it took the selection of senators away from the states and put that matter in the hands of the people.  This was clearly a huge step in the direction of "democratizing" American politics, supposedly taking power out of the often-corrupt political machines operating in the state capitals and placing that power, through the people, into the Washington political arena itself – where supposedly the political doings of America's wielders of power could be more closely watched, and checked, by an enlightened citizenry (enlightened largely by the information put forward by a Progressivist Press corps).

POWER PROBLEMS

There was no doubt that the state legislators and governors' offices were frequently the arenas of amazingly corrupt behavior, such as the laws defined and sought to restrict or suppress.  But keeping such corruption under control is not an easy task.  Power always attracts the interest of people with more active egos, who find it easy enough to get around moral-legal restrictions holding them back in this power-pursuit, because human reason can always find a way to justify virtually anything.

But what these two Amendments did was simply to shift the scene of such grand pursuit of power from the individual states, now to the distant offices of the Washington politicians.  And guess what?  Political corruption naturally moved in that direction as well.

Worse, handing Washington such new (and potentially limitless) power would mean that the numerous states would find "checking" the power of the central state (which was the big question which the Constitution faced when seeking ratification in 1787-1788) would be nearly impossible at this point.  Then who would place the needed checks on such power:  the Washington politicians themselves or the national press corps looking for ways to get into the power game itself?

How would America's citizens effectively protect themselves in this move to "democracy," when action "behind the scenes" would be almost impossible to detect from Omaha or Dallas or Denver?  Could they trust the press (supposedly the eyes and ears of the people) not to get ideologically involved in the process and thus become part of the problem rather than its solution?

No one raised such questions in the rush to "democratize" America in the early 20th century.



Go on to the next section:  American Christianity Responds

  Miles H. Hodges