“A Fight of Individualism Versus Collectivism…” (Paul Ryan)

Education v. Tyranny

I remember as a child getting in trouble for fighting in the schoolyard. So in an élan of linguistic generosity I suggest that perhaps what Paul Ryan sees as a Randesque “fight” in America’s socio-political ‘schoolyard’ between individualism and (some form of) statism, is not really a fight, but an inherently philosophical tension -- a theoretical DMZ (Demilitarized Zone, for those who still remember the Vietnam War) to be respected by all the players in the American game in order for our profoundly diverse United states to function in an environment of freedom.
            Unlike all men (at least according to our Declaration of Independence), not all opinions are created equal. Ever since I was a little boy I have heard a sentiment expressed, which has been systematically misattributed to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.” Were this philosophical sentiment truly from the Enlightenment Man, I would continue to feel guilty about thinking, privately, what a dumb sentiment this is; but as it’s only from the EM’s English biographer, I can now say with renewed philosophical boldness:  I am quite sure that I will avoid at all costs defending to the death someone’s right to think or to believe or to say something STUPID! Stupid (read: under-/un-informed) opinions don’t count for me, either as private citizen or publicly professing philosophy teacher; and, no, I do not value martyrdom or self-immolation for stupid ideas. (And by the way, yes… notwithstanding the great cloud of witnesses, which are the collective shades of my public schoolteachers surrounding me even as I pen these words, sadly shaking their heads in disappointment and disapprobation, there are in fact also stupid questions!). So, for the record, I suggest that the above-cited, bolded and titled opinion from Mr. Ryan, i.e., that America is being torn asunder by the fight between individualism and collectivism, is under- and un-informed.

            Now allow me to up the blogging ante by leaving behind (but only temporarily) my childhood memories and Truisms, and re-penning words that express a different philosophical sentiment, one for which I have unqualified admiration.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

So, asks the less-Truistically disposed adult version of me, what are the philosophical underpinnings of this opening argument of the United States Constitution? It reads like a perfect political science road-map for a social contract – an invitation to collectivize, taken straight out of Enlightenment-era French salons… Statement of Purpose (as my wife, the English Teacher, might put it): “We the People” agree to work together in order to “ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America”.

Question #1. But, might ask the I-lifted-myself-up-by-my-own-boot-straps American, the varied and the sundried, why should we individuals, why would I want to overcome my varied and sundried-ness in order to collectivize with those who, perhaps, do not bring to the table as much as I do? The Varied-and-Sundried would have every right to respond to the US Constitution’s philosophical invitation to ‘unite forces’ by asserting, justifiably or not: ‘I am proud of what I have accomplished with my work, my dreams, my energy, my resources, my, my, my… Why should I be forced to share any of my hard-earned… etcetera, etcetera, etcetera (it will be more fun if you say etcetera like Yule Brenner in The King and I)?

            So how would the American philosophe respond to the assertion-clothed-as-question of this particular Varied-and-Sundried, this philosophically un-united Island of Mr. One (Island with a total population of 1, me-myself-and-I, or 3 if you’re trying to cook the books: me, myself, and I)? The question, after all, certainly has philosophical legitimacy. Why should the individual be compelled to give of his abundance to others? At this point I prefer to break my old grade-school English teacher’s heart (sorry, Mrs. Bryant), and to answer this first question by asking a second question.

Question #2. What ideas or principles could have moved our Founding Fathers to agree to override an individual’s interests, goals, ambitions, differences, and grievances, in order to create a group of individuals into an increasingly perfectible Union? (I think I may have just given away the answer to question #1 – namely, that Mr. Island’s assertion is simply counter-Constitutional, and therefore philosophically inconsistent with the framework laid out by America’s Founding Fathers!). Make no mistake about it, America’s Fathers were clearly persuaded that a Union of individuals, as opposed to individual islands and (very tiny) atolls, is the superior form of the Social Contract, and should therefore take precedence over the Non-social Contract, or Anarchy.

            At this point my long-term memory kicks back in and I recall my 6^th grade biology teacher (although I was most certainly sitting in the back row looking out the window or staring at my neighbor’s, Debbie’s, 6^th grade legs) telling us that humans are by nature social animals. But what does that actually mean, unless it means something like, we humans are designed in such a way that we prosper better in our world by grouping ourselves, rather than by isolating ourselves? So, already simple grade school biology thumbs its nose at Mr. Island’s wrong-headed philosophical inclination. And to add insult to injury, what about Mrs. Clinton’s proverbial and socially collectivist contention that “it takes a village to raise a child”?

            So if Nature (both Human and Mother) itself tries to teach us that we prosper better grouped than isolated, what then might be the goals of such United groups? This is the part where the American philosophes made history; and this is also precisely where Mr. Ryan seems to see his Randesque ‘fight’. What types of goals did our Founding Fathers set out for these states United? It is better, affirm these philosophes, to unite forces in Order to do 6 things:

1)   form a more perfect Union,

2)   establish Justice,

3)   insure domestic Tranquility,

4)   provide for the common defense,

5)   promote the general Welfare, and

6)   secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity

Now that we have settled what the Founding Fathers were philosophically committed to… In the above linked article referring to Mr. Ryan’s commitment to and distance from Ayn Rand’s philosophy of radical individualism, Mr. Ryan says that Rand's works are required reading for his staff. "The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand," he went on to say. "And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism."

Another Truism that enjoyed prominence in my formative educational years, being primarily directed at me, is that someone can have just enough education to be dangerous.  So I give you Paul Ryan, the intellectual leader of the GOP:

“In April, Ryan attempted to distance himself from his prior infatuation with the novelist, telling the National Review in an interview, "If somebody is going to try to paste a person's view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas. Don't give me Ayn Rand." (A spokesman later suggested that Ryan was not repudiating Rand's philosophy, but that Ryan did not make staffers read "Atlas Shrugged.")”

Remember that, philosophically speaking, Ryan is on the side of radical individualism—the Mr. (each man is an) Island philosophy. So why, then, in defense of this philosophy of supreme individualism, is Ryan giving priority in this last quote to one of the paramount collectivist and communitarian organizations on the planet – the Catholic Church, through the person of one of her greatest saints, the Angelic Doctor, Thomas Aquinas?

            It seems clear to me that instead of proffering for public consumption under- and un-informed insular sentiment that runs counter to the collectivizing thought of America’s Founding Fathers, this newly-hatched vice-presidential candidate should really just stick to being the radical economic and budget adviser for the GOP, and leave the work of public intellectualism and philosophy to less-dangerously (i.e., more) educated intellectuals and philosophers.

            It would still seem, however, that this is no longer just a battle for the soul of America, but also an important fight in that battle, to answer the question – what is man that we, The People, are mindful of him?

America’s Founding Fathers

Toland's (1696) Deistic Tract

Why is there such continued interest in showing whether or not America’s Founding Fathers were Christian? Does it really matter, to anyone anywhere (even to the odd revisionist or  orthodox scholar of US history---really?!), whether George Washington was a deist, theist, Christian, or just all-around better than average military leader? (This is the question my wife woke me up with this morning, instead of just bringing me coffee in bed like I had hoped!).

            But the web is abuzz and atwitter with the question, ranging from the scholarly to the much less scholarly – provoking even simpler grass-roots, tea-party loving Americans to a non-sequitur defense of their much-loved deist/theist/therefore-Christian, Thomas Paine. In this grass-roots link the distinction between deist, theist, and Christian is initially important to the Washington argument, because Lillback (the above revisionist [sic] historian) is apparently somewhat “too” arbitrary in defining his terms; but then our grass-roots guide to American history assures us, textually, that Thomas Paine, who was a deist of the theistic persuasion believing in the God Providence (one of the five deities of Christianity) and founding the Church of Theophilanthropists, by virtue of being a deist/theist, was therefore also Christian, because anyone who believes in Providential Deity in a Thomas Painean kind of way is de facto Christian. It’s enough to befuddle even the clearest-minded among us.

            Well, what is my pre-coffee reflection on this question? It seems like my first and only-a-little snide response is pretty simple – it certainly doesn’t matter to George Washington himself, who, at this point, has already had a fairly decent amount of time to make his peace with his belief choices. Less snidely, though (because I’ve gotten up to make my own coffee! Sigh…), while George Washington was a fine military man, no one, historian or lay, has tried seriously making the case that Washington was an intellectual beacon among the Founding Fathers. So I think it is pretty safe to say that the philosophical framers of our constitution – who were for the most part our American version of the French philosophes-- called on Washington when they needed a swift sword and a winning military strategy, but not when it came to sweating out the ideas, words and phrases that would become, “We the people…”

            Which brings us back ‘round to the crux of my wife’s question. What is gained by the debate about whether or not the Founding Fathers were Christian? For the record, while I certainly concur that the vast majority of the American Fathers (even Thomas Jefferson) were church-goers (they are listed on the church rolls, paid tithes, etc.,), evidence suggests that this is more significant from a societal point of view than from an informed philosophical conviction of metaphysical reality. No one would dispute the fact that (1) church pews are replete with church-goers, nor that (2) many of those who occupy the pews do not necessarily do the work of the church, nor that (finally!) many church-goers find comfort in attending church (a social event) but not necessarily in believing the church stories (a philosophical event). So my concurring that America’s Founders were church-goers, although not necessarily Christian believers in a modern evangelical kind of way, should pose no inordinate problems.

            So, on to our crux… Why might it be important for Modern America to re-discover or to re-invent for itself a Christian foundation? The question itself suggests to me that there is a not-so-subtle theocratic or religious junta afoot in American, an attempt to control or influence the social voice of the people by imposing upon (or inserting into) the American foundation myths a supposedly ‘original’, and therefore truly American, religious heritage, which is Christian. Yet, I teach in my Introduction to Philosophy classes that America was never/is not a Christian country – not because I particularly care about any America’s (Early or Modern) religious convictions, but because it is important philosophically to understand that the architects who framed the American Constitution (1) very deliberately avoided allowing any type of power to be consolidated in the various institutions of state (hence the separation of powers), and (2) argued for the absolute separation of the church from the state, to avoid establishing a religious-political entity, which is to say a theocracy (a god-powered state), with a Deity as head of state. Nor can one dispute that the supreme philosophical contribution of the Founding Fathers to the western thought tradition was the disestablishment of religion in general, and Christianity in particular. This is just history. The very framing of the American political structure is, philosophically and fundamentally, anti-theocratic in nature!

            When we consider Iran, for example, or other religious states such as the Vatican, they are theocracies, which means that acts of state, i.e., political and legislative decisions, are dictated and controlled by the Keepers of the sacred text (such as the Koran or the Bible and/or Papal Tradition). In theocracies, questions of right and wrong are grounded in absolute and unchanging metaphysical truths, which are pronounced and announced by the Religious Interpreters; so ethical questions are not in the least influenced by political, social, or international expediency (ethical philosophers call this moral absolutism).

            In democracies, on the other hand, which are people-powered states, questions of right and wrong have no permanent or absolute answers; instead, the answers to ethical questions are grounded in the flow of social and political consensus, which evolves with the changing convictions of the ongoing generations (this is called moral relativism). Understanding this concept of a people-centered government as morally relative, is also useful in explaining Jefferson’s emphatic devotion to education-- to educate the public is the sacred duty of a state governed by the people, because education is the last redoubt for the American citizen against the permutation of power into all types of tyranny, political as well as religious (see Jefferson’s letter to Joseph C. Cabell, 1818, FE 10:99; for a reference to Papal tyranny, see Adam’s letter to Thomas Jefferson, December 2, 1813, CAPPON, vol. 2, p. 404).

            This is the type of enlightenment government, grounded in reason and reasoned argument, that was established by the American Founding Fathers, and which all political players are called upon to protect when they are sworn in to office. According to this source, in Article 6 of the US Constitution:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

In enlightenment democracies of this American type, then, relativist consensus building looks a whole lot like public involvement, ballot initiatives, elections, and voting. Thus, to use a provocative example, up until 1973 it was criminal in the United States for a woman to have an abortion, but in January of 1973 the right to abortion became written into the American Constitution, thereby becoming an inalienable constitutional right for all Americans, until another generation should be persuaded to vote differently on the question. So unlike in a theocracy, in a morally relativist political state like America the truth-value of any specific ‘act’ (like abortion, or gun control, or individual health care, or any other issue-act) ebbs and flows with the changing will of the voting public. It is for this reason that I tell my students that it does not matter what their/my private opinion is about the act of abortion- we the people have the private right to our private convictions, and it is so intended and so designed in American that we citizens should be engaged in the public arena to try to persuade other citizens to our view. But any politician or political entity who/which erects a political campaign formally committed to overturning inalienable constitutional rights (in my provocative example the pro-choice platform), is engaged in some type of religious or personal proselytization that is clearly opposed to, actively committed to subverting by any and all means, and unwilling to uphold, rights guaranteed to all Americans under the constitution (specifically those broad rights as defined in the 9^th and 14^th Amendments). And such politicians, I tell my students, to whatever degree they fail to give adequate reason and argument for their position, should therefore be voted out of political office as quickly as possible so they can assume their rightful calling among the religious voices of America.

            For the record: In secular (read: non-theocratic) America, arguments grounded in reason do not begin with anything resembling the following phrase: “The Bible says…” or “God…” If this enlightenment axiom were respected, it would take some significant degree of philosophical ingenuity and persuasion to make an ethical case against abortion (as opposed to a medical case, or other). This is why most pro-life politicians who take a public/political stand against abortion, simply issue a statement either that they are morally opposed to “it”, giving no reason for their opposition, or they issue a statement that their opposition is based on moral reasons, but then there is bewildered and confused argument when it comes to stating those reasons for the record. Yet, from my philosopher’s point of view, in this American Republic there should be no shame or fear in taking a philosophical stance against a given position; shame should only be present when American politicians’ private religious convictions override their public/political and moral duty to defend the rights guaranteed to all citizens protected by the American Constitution.

            This, it seems to me, is the reason for all the fuss about whether or not, or which of, the Founding Fathers were/were not/might have been/could have been Christian.