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McKenzie starts by asking the questions "What were the Framers' views on human nature? How did their views inform the document they bequeathed to us? To what degree were their beliefs about human nautre consistent with Christian teaching?"
The Founders
The Founders did not believe humans were inherently good; far from it. "The core problem . . . was that neither state governments nor private citizens could be trusted to promote the common good without compulsion." George Washington said "we must take human nature as we find it." And how did they find it? James Madison summarizes: "As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust: So there are other qualities in human nature, which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence." In other words, we reflect both the image of God and the reality of the fall.
More on human nature: "Our overriding motives from birth are to rule ourselves and please ourselves." "To deny ourselves in order to promote the good of others is a contradiction of the willful self-interest that naturally propels us through life." This is true of all—not just those in power. "The present moral character of the citizens of the United States proves too plainly that the people are as much disposed to vice as their rulers." (Benjamin Rush)
With human nature in mind, "the U.S. Constitution emerged from a crisis of virtue." (Thomas S. Kidd) The Framers' "recognition that we are self-interested by nature informs every article, every section, every line of the document that they created. It explains their ambiguity toward governmental power, their preoccupation with checks and balances, and above all, their distrust of democracy."
You read that last phrase correctly: democracy cannot be intrinsically trusted—because individuals cannot be. Sometimes our "true interest" will be "at variance with [our] inclinations." (Madison or Hamilton) Even a majority can arrive at a wrong conclusion and support terrible wrongs. "Because none of us is reliably good, a majority with interests at odds with the rest of society poses a threat to the minority. Because none of us is reliably good, a government with power independent of the majority poses a threat to everyone." Thus the Framers sought to create a structure "to protect the people from the government and to protect the people from themselves." That was the attitude in 1787. It wouldn't last.
The Jacksonian Era
Just four decades later, Andrew Jackson insisted that "most men and women are naturally virtuous." The idea of government started to change. Whereas "the Framers thought of government officials as trustees charged with the solemn obligation to promote the common welfare, by the 1820s, Americans increasingly thought of government officeholders as public agents, hired representatives whose primary function was to impement the wishes of the taxpayers who paid their salaries."
"The Framers had grounded their convictions about government on their fundamental belief that humans are essentially selfish and prone to passion. By the 1820s, Jacksonian rhetoric frequently assumed exactly the opposite. As it emerged in Jacksonian America, the gospel of democracy is that men and women individually are basically good, and collectively they are reliably wise, with the result that the will of the majority is infused with an unassailable moral authority." This was the rise of a democratic faith—a belief that democracy will intrinsically produce just outcomes.
There is a difference between democratic philosophy and democratic faith. The latter concludes that "a democratic process will reliably deliver ideal social outcomes." That's false; let's look at the former. For this, we turn to Tocqueville, a Frenchman who came to America in the 1830s to observe democracy.
What Tocqueville Observed
Tocqueville claims that democracy is morally indeterminate. He insisted that "democracy can undermine liberty as well as expand it." It can result in "servitude or liberty, enlightenment or barbarism, prosperity or misery." (Tocqueville) Therefore, "the output of a purely democratic process would simply be whatever the majority advocates, condones, or tolerates, and precisely because we are not naturally virtuous, the range of possible outcomes is vast." Hence the possibility of a "tyranny of the majority." We obviously see this in our past, from slavery, the displacement of the Indians, and more. And we see it in our present: things like 'cancel culture' are predictable. 'Agree with us or be ostracized.' "The potential for popular majorities to inflict oppression and injustice—on other or on themselves—will ever remain one of democracy's features."
Though democracy is morally indeterminate, that is not to say we are without hope. Not all is dire. Tocqueville had both fears and hopes. A certain mindset can protect against the dangers. He "discovered that Americans frequently lived by the maxim that short-term self-denial leads to long-term gain." He called this an 'enlightened' self-interest. This can promote "the common good, even though their primary motivation may be expectation of personal benefit." This was tied to religion. "Democracy needs religion to flourish." How? Because when a population is rightly focused on a higher authority (and the immortality of the soul), "it reduces the likelihood that the majority will abuse its power and promote injustice."
"To sum up, democracy isn't intrinsically intolerant and authoritarian, but it can be. The question for us is, Will it be?"
Where to from here?
"The Scripture does not describe us as basically good beings who occasionally "let ourselves down" by making "Poor choices." It teaches instead that we come into the world bearing not only the image of God but also the imprint of the fall, propelled through life by the determination to govern ourselves and please ourselves."
"The delegates who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 knew that their constituents could be misled by ambitious leaders, follow passion rather than reason, and pursue self-interest at the price of justice. The Framers knew that there would be no angels in the government, and no angels in th electorate, and they planned accordingly. They designed a Consitution for fallen people. Its genius lay in how it held in tension two seemingly incompatible beliefs: first, that the majority must generally prevail; and second, that the majority is predisposed to seek personal advantage above the common good.
"Two generations later, Jacksonian politicians resolved this tention by denying the second premise. They preached a democratic gospel, insisteing that we are naturally virtuous. They proclaimed a democratic faith, insisting that our collective will is reliably just." We're still of that mindset today, and that needs to change. We disagree with the Founding Fathers we supposedly revere.
What do we do moving forward? The author suggests the truth of our fallenness should affect how we think and act.
For thinking, we must take sin seriously and be "more alert to the false assumptions about human nature, implicit and explicit, that are intertwined with democracy as we practice it and experience it." Among other things, that means rejecting "democratic faith" (democracy is not intrinsically just) and "nurture instead a democratic philosophy, conceiving of democracy simply as a process of self-government that is inevitably imperfect, like all human institutions, and learning to measure its strengths and weaknesses against our more fundamental commitments and convictions."
For acting, the author makes three points:
1) "[W]e must run from every effort to meld Christianity with a particular political party, movement, or leader." "We reveal much about ourselves in our political transactions, for implicit in each is a declaration about what we desire and how much we are willing to pay for it." What do our votes proclaim "about the body of Christ," and what are we proclaiming "to the world about God?" These questions must be ever before us.
2) We must "confess the allure of power, acknowledge the danger of power, and work proactively to mitigate the abuse of power." "Among other things, "this means that we should jealously protect what remains of the constitutional structure that the Framers designed for a fallen people."" We must acknowledge "that power is dangerous whoever wields it, not just when it is controlled by our political rivals. We will know what we can be the agents of oppression, just as we can be the authors of our own subjugation." So let's "be fearful of any leader unwilling to question his own virtue and wisdom . . . " Let's remember that "liberty is not freedom to do what we want. It's the freedom to do what we ought."
3) We must insist "that rhetoric matters." "Our words reveal who we are, Jesus proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount, for they flow 'out of the abundance of the heart.'" (Luke 6:45)
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Profound. Insightful. Transformative. Eloquent. Fair. Convicting. I could keep going. This book is a must-read. How we understand the two most basic truths in the world (who God is and who humans are) is the lens through which we see everything else—and we act accordingly. This book focuses on the latter, to great effect. I will be recommending this for a long time. Run, don't walk, to your local bookstore and buy this today.
Rating: A+
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