Timeline:

Domestic PNM Theory — Chirol at Coming Anarchy

AMERICA’S INTERNAL NON-INTEGRATING GAP — Mark Safranski at ZenPudit

Personal Equals Political II — Phatic Communion

PLATO’S REPUBLICAN ? A REBUTTAL TO THE INTERNAL GAP POST — Mark Safranski at ZenPundit

Twining — Phatic Communion

NEW ORLEANS: LESSONS OF A FAILED STATE — Mark Safranski at ZenPundit

The above are the entries I’ve been following or have included which concern something most everyone who studies America has seen: that the Union is often disunited. What happened in New Orleans and what has happened distant from New Orleans after Katrina only serve to highlight what most Americans already know. We are a democracy, yes, but democracy is a messy enterprise; enterprises that have no central decision-maker (individual person or collection of persons) are doomed to suffer moments of extreme chaos — if not to fail by such chaos ultimately, as well. Plato had it right when he marveled at democracy’s variety while criticizing the chaotic, narrow sighted self-interest which is sure to develop in a strong democracy: that is democracy’s weakness.

For the most part, Americans have welcomed some measure of chaos as a sure sign that democracy was happening. The checks and balances written into the American Constitution are a formalization of division: division of labor, yes, and so some balance; but also a division sure to lead to friction and conflict. Our modern era has witnessed bitter attacks on one branch of government by members of the other branches — the Supreme Court — while witnessing severe attacks on the Presidency by a near-majority (if not outright majority) of the population. The Constitution also writes friction into the American psyche in terms of federal vs. state governance. Capitalism depends on friction, conflict, winners and losers. For over a century now, science has also depended on a friction beyond the sort addressed by physics: “survival of the fittest” determined who and what we are as a species. Science has commingled with capitalism, as one has spurred practitioners of the other and practitioners within the same field toward progress; and opponents of either have found a base in politics, as have the proponents of either:

We are a querulous nation, but our quarrels have led America to superstate status currently unrivaled on this planet.

So the scientific, political, and economic conflicts have hitherto proven beneficial, on the whole — or, for the whole. Yet we currently have members of our society who do not wish to associate with the whole or with other members of the society, or both, and every year that passes brings us nearer to an opponent which will rival our miscellaneous and generic successes, requiring us to act with one united will if we are to avoid utter defeat.

I have many shadow opponents to list: Earth’s limited natural resources; Earth’s climate; China (or an Asian-South American bloc); Earth’s ecosystem, particularly viruses and extinctions; Islamofascists. But these are shadow opponents. Unless we are to believe that humanity or America is destined to die, we must believe that whatever is thrown at us from these can be met and stopped, destroyed, or altered, if only we see their approach and rise to the challenge.

The great opponent I see looming before us is us. I almost said, it is The Future, but the term has recently shifted in my understanding as a consequence of the blog entries linked above, and I didn’t want the usual association to be made. The shift occurred most strongly after I read Mark Safranski’s response to my comparison of his plan for solving the non-integrating gap with Plato’s plan in The Republic, but it occurred when I read words I had written quoted back by Mark:

They may be involved in different tasks, different goals with different motivations, but I’m of the same mind with Plato when he asserts that any system of society is a reflection of all the actual members of a society. I.e., we are already connected within the society, even if we don’t always notice the connections or recognize the type of connections that are present. These questions seem paramount, if we are to decide what, exactly, will be taught to the children of our society: what values, what merits, what future.

My first written response to Mark’s entry came in the form of a long and winding autobiographical entry, but that entry has many things which I have not joined with my previous comments. Reading my words at ZenPundit, I was struck by the last phrase: what values, what merits, what future.

If read as a typical platitude, the phrase is meaningless, because the things mentioned in it are so commonly mentioned when the subject turns to the education of children. But I realized that the list grows more vague as it progresses.

Values are in everyday debate, Theist vs. Scientist or Objectivist or Secularist, Capitalist/Consumer vs. ascetic Anarchist, etc. We have some idea of what values are to be considered when we wish to educate our children on the issue of values, even if we don’t agree which values are best. Mathematical values, chemical values, monetary values, and the like, are fairly easy to discern.

Merits introduces some subjectivity, since by “merit” we usually mean “positive value” or “desired value.” Does an argument have merit? Does a legislative act have merit? Does a student have merit (or deserve demerits?) Beyond the consideration of values, merit suggests what is worthy; and what is worthy ultimately depends on what the ultimate goals are concerning things or persons which have specific values.

The Future is the vaguest of them all. I realized that this is the one thing that is usually lacking in our education. We can teach history, or biology (which is the history or present of living things) or mathematics (which is without time, though it has a history and present); but how do we teach The Future? We spend a great deal of time teaching students about the history of America, but none about the future of America. Granted, some discussion concerning where science is headed makes its way into our curriculum, and some religious schools teach of a future salvation by teaching The End Times; but in the first case, the science is theoretical, and in the second case, the End is assured. Without an education on a definite future, we cannot act or need not act toward it. In addition to the mentioned limited considerations of The Future in our curriculum is the one American dictum concerning The Future, that “You can be anything you want to be if you believe and work at it hard enough.” — but this is a selfish, individualistic glimpse into the future, and I believe that the absence of education on a common future for Americans will lead to further chaos at best and an entire lack of a common future at worst: i.e., the worst case scenario is “No America” for the future.

We do depend too much on the vision of the Framers. We live too much in the past. And so we risk not creating the future we would wish for our own nation were we but to consider the fate of America.

The “disconnected” are many, not just the so-called underclass. However, I can see just now, thinking of my long and winding autobiographical entry, that my problem was the absence of a realistic and healthy outlook on the future. I had no concept of a healthy marriage between two men, and so I engaged in dangerous activity in my experimentation — and in my despair. I think those others, gay or straight, who do not have a healthy vision of The Future, despair in the same way. But I do not approve of many of the so-called “connected” — who similarly do not have a healthy vision of the future, because they often fail to include their so-called “disconnected” neighbors, and those neighbors will be going into the future with them.