Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
We are a fractured nation, but there is still hope
We are a fractured nation, but there is still hope
Apr 2, 2025 9:42 PM

The Founders worried about “factionalism” ing tyranny, but thought the nation so large and scattered that it would be impossible for the “like-minded” e together for evil ends. But modern social and mass media have helped turn citizens into mobs determined to destroy their political enemies. Do we have anything mon anymore?

Read More…

It’s e monplace observation that while we are indeed a divided nation, we have been divided before and, some claim, in much worse ways.

The first part is undoubtedly true, while the second seems more debatable, and this particularly in light of a recent ing from the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) at the University of Virginia that shows roughly half of Americans on both sides of the political spectrum seriously indulging fantasies of secession. Along those lines, and more disturbingly, even higher percentages of respondents viewed members of the other party as presenting a “clear and present danger” that will likely result in “personal loss or suffering.”

I’m not familiar with any polling data extant during other periods of divisional crisis, but the fact that roughly half the country would make no effort to keep the other half from seceding—indeed, would happily defenestrate them—ought to make one nervous. This nervousness intensifies when one considers that the CRP poll claims that 62% of Biden voters and 88% of Trump voters would support “a powerful leader” who would “destroy the radical and immoral currents prevailing in society today.” Those “currents” will have names and faces, making it hard to imagine how such destruction could be plished without violence.

The dissolution into factional violence, as the writers of our Constitution realized and feared, has always been one of the dangers that dog republican systems of government. Since, as Madison observed, “the seeds of dissension are sown into the nature of man,” and such sowing is a “reflection on human nature” that doesn’t admit of alteration without “liberty [being] lost in the pursuit,” our constitutional system attempts to manage and even channel disagreement in constructive ways. The extension of the sphere of politics, both demographically and geographically, would make our politics more temperate and make the formation of tyrannies that “vex and oppress” others unlikely.

One wonders what Madison would make of the age of mass and social media. plex system the Founders developed assumed that people of similar interests would be unlikely to find each other and discover their particularconception of the good that would have a greater claim on their allegiances than mitment to mongood. Not only geographic separation but the plications of munication would mean, Madison argued, that “by their number and local situation” partisans would be “unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression.” The capacity to tyrannize thus dissipated, the regime could actually be maintained and stabilized by the clash peting interests. It is obvious by now that bination of hypermobility, extant settlement patterns, and the toxic media environment have rendered the constitutional system largely toothless in its ability to both guard our liberties and buttress any mitment to a mon good.

It’s difficult to imagine how mitment might be reanimated. I recently argued that our failure to produce leaders who could bridge our divides reflects our more fundamental inability to maintain a shared culture. Only by borrowing on that shared culture was Lincoln able to appeal to “the better angels of our nature” that would allow us to recognize each other as “not enemies, but friends.” A just regime, Aristotle observed, demanded a mode of civic friendship wherein individuals could, when required, sacrifice their personal goods and interests in favor of the whole. Such favoring requires an understanding of the whole and one’s place in it, as well as a love for it. Liberal regimes place an additional burden on its citizens: namely, a skepticism concerning one’s own ability to understand what is best, and a itant generosity toward an opponent’s ability to understand. Without such self-doubt and “malice toward none with charity for all,” American democracy es vicious.

Those virtues are rarely on display in our contemporary politics. Americans increasingly live separated lives wherein they have little interaction with people who disagree with them, allowing them convenient caricatures of their opponents. We selectively read media sources that confirm our biases rather than challenge them, and we live in social media echo chambers that, we are finding out, have a capacity to destroy lives and livelihoods, deepening the fear we have of one another. We have increasingly settled into blue regions and red regions. Even seemingly benign social markers indicate our divides: Tell me what someone watches on Netflix or show me how that person spent the weekend and I’ll tell you how that person voted in the last election.

The CRP study reinforces what the Pew Foundation discovered previously—namely, that it is OK for politicians to regard opponents not only as misinformed but also as anti-American and even evil. Our ideas of patriotism have devolved in troubling ways such that in the imperative to “love the whole,” we can’t agree on what that whole is, or what part it should play in the larger whole of the so-called global society, which itself has e a source of serious political division. If indeed globalization is an ineluctable force that divides America into winners and losers, that force will likely strain domestic politics to a breaking point. When Americans are taking less pride in their country than are Germans, French, or Brits—and take less pride than we used to—we might well ask what, if anything, might hold us together.

Theorists often talk about America as an experiment in liberal democracy. We are all too familiar with the weaknesses of the democratic parts: mob violence, factional dissolution, gridlock, and instability. America’s success has partly hinged on the liberal elements of the equation, and here the CRP poll gives us a something of a blueprint for moving forward. The liberal tradition has long favored the demands of practical reason over theoretical reason, and this in the context of a pluralist situation where people will often disagree about the nature of the good itself. Given such disagreement, order is maintained by mutual forbearance, an unwillingness to use the instruments of coercion that you know can be used against you in turn. Where agreement about ends can’t be achieved, individuals and parties agree to “stand down” and, in so far as it’s possible, go their separate ways. When agreement can be achieved, the involved parties have all the liberty and energy at their disposal to move forward. Liberalism requires this sort of reasonableness as regards mutually beneficial exchanges and actions.

In other words, American constitutionalism works best when it focuses neither on ultimate ends and purposes or unduly on the self’s own demands. It works best when we are engaged in practical projects that reflect shared interests. Here, as I said, the CRP report gives us reason for hope, and also a playbook that parties might want to consult. The report (see Table 1) gives evidence of high levels of agreement concerning things that are demonstrably public goods: energy systems, infrastructure, and delivery of necessities such as clean water and food. This consensus begins to break down when we get to what have long been culture war sorts of battles: family life and education.

So long as Americans can remain focused on the material well-being of households, which are properly the germ of political life, there is hope in our perilous moment. Conversely, focusing on individuals or contesting ultimate goods will exacerbate our divisions. Those who insist on either e to regret the unleashing of the forces of violence with which they flirt.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
No one knows what a return to ‘normalcy’ after COVID-19 will look like
At some point, not today but perhaps in the next few weeks, we will be having more conversations about getting people back to work and restoring the $21 trillion U.S. economy. Some signs indicate the coronavirus pandemic may turn soon in the United States. Even if the entire nation makes an all-out effort to restrict contact, coronavirus deaths will peak in the next two weeks, with patients overwhelming hospitals in most states, according to a University of Washington study. The...
Service is love for our God and our clients
For the Italian Nuova Bussola Quotidiana media outlet, I am publishing a series of short reflections on economics, virtue and spirituality during Lent entitled Lentenomics(go here for the first reflection on “sacrifice”). In the second of these six essays I turned my attention to the virtue of “service.” In summary, I write that “service has a supremely essential role within the economy, and not just in the so-called ‘service industries.’ Markets simply cannot function without services. They are the fundamental...
‘They want to punish the Church’: Italian priest fined for procession to fight coronavirus
The following translation is an exclusive interview that appeared in the weekend edition of the northern Italian daily La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, which has fiercely defended Italy’s religious freedom throughout the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Correspondent Andrea Zambrano interviewed a Roman Catholic parish priest, Rev. Domenico Cirigliano, who was slapped with a €400 fine by local police for processing with a “miraculous” crucifix. Rev. Cirigliano said he was performing essential “work” by blessing the town of Rocca Imperiale in order to...
Acton Line podcast: How to talk about rights in our polarized age
Today, our most contentious controversies are about morality. We disagree about questions of efficiency and democracy, but across political aisles, we also disagree about what’s right to do and who we’re ing as a people. How can we have productive debates with people whose worldviews are very different from ours? Adam MacLeod, professor of law at Faulkner University, addresses this question in his new book titled “The Age of Selfies: Reasoning About Rights When the Stakes Are Personal.” In this...
13,000 children are being denied an education over a funding fight
Millions of schoolchildren are currently out of school under state orders intended to slow the spread of the coronavirus. However, in Oregon, at least 13,000 students are being unnecessarily denied an education to benefit traditional public schools’ monopoly over education. Earlier this month, Gov. Kate Brown ordered all Oregon’s public schools closed until the end of March. She then extended that deadline to April 28. This would be unexceptional if not for the fact that she also closed online public...
Three core principles to evaluate the coronavirus stimulus
As epidemiologists scramble to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on public health, economists are evaluating its impact on the global economy. Experts in both fields absorb the flurry of data, interpret it through their scientific training and the lens of similar historical events, and endeavor to mend a path forward. Yet everyone knows that ultimately we are in unchartered waters, and possible es vary widely. As an economist, I am stunned by the nearly 10 million jobless claims...
April Fools’ Day: Italians are not joking around anymore as civil unrest builds
Culturally the first of April – April Fools’ Day – is the same in Italy as in America. It’s a day of practical jokes and laughs. Only here it’s called April Fish Day, because it is related to the ancient end of the Pisces or Fish sign in the zodiac. It also the day of jokes which Italians inherited from the ancient Roman feast of Hilaria (hilarious in English) celebrated around the spring equinox. During the Hilaria celebrations Romans would...
The Great Gaetano Rebecchini: Italy’s hero succumbs to the coronavirus
Gaetano Rebecchini was a great Italian, an extraordinary witness to our traditional national values, while challenging politically correctness and representing the best of our country. Today, Italy lost a good, honest, courageous person, an example for present and future generations e. Read More… Today was the first time I learned of someone I know and respect who lost his battle to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). He was a 95 year-old political warrior and defender of freedom: Gaetano Rebecchini. He returned...
Creativity will kill COVID-19
It is in the most desperate of times that we must not forget our principles. Globally, we are facing desperate times. In the United States, unemployment rolls doubled in just one week, climbing to 6.6 million unemployment claims for the week ending March 28, 2020. As more Americans are asked to stay at home, many have e unemployed. Additionally, the potential death toll scares us, and we beg for scientists to expedite new tests, anti-viral drugs, and vaccines. These are...
Coronavirus shows us how work impacts civilization
Many Americans are already struggling due to the ripple effects of the COVID-19 lockdown. Just last week, more than 6.6 million Americans filed unemployment claims. Some economists predict that total job losses could reach 47 million. In turn, much of our focus is rightly set on the material devastation—lost salaries, declining assets, and so on. Yet the economic lockdown brings significant social costs as well, reminding us that our economic activity has social value to our civilization that goes well...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved