Every day and all day our world, dominated by online media, demands that we stare at our feet. Especially the flames at our feet that politicians, pundits, influencers, family, and friends warn us are ready to consume us all. Most of these folks fan the flames rather than attempt to extinguish them in a twisted attempt to get attention at the expense of our well-being. Fear mongers have become endemic in our society in the last several years. “World War III is imminent!” “Our democracy is about to collapse!” “Immigrants are rapists, drug mules, and murderers!”
Of course, most often what the fear mongers are saying is “Look at me!” to feed their vanity and to influence those they wish to manipulate. And while doomsayers can cause expectations to spin up into manifestation—the proverbial self-fulfilling prophecy—generally all they actually accomplish is increasing our anxiety to the point of our exhaustion. Their claims, while possible, are not probable based on facts and reason. These fear mongers are political and social parasites gnawing at the feathers of our better-angel wings. Their pessimism promotes peril at the expense of prosperity.
We live in an open society by choice with limited guardrails as a democratic republic. Openness, which is also known as (small “l”) liberal, is what our founders wanted for us after escaping the tyranny of religion and monarchies in Europe. Self-determination, which is a concept born of the Protestant Reformation when the Calvinist notion of pre-destination was set aside in favor of the notion that any person could become worthy of a heavenly afterlife through their own volition and perfection, together with individualism born of the same Reformation that allowed a direct relationship between people and God (without, in particular, papal intermediation), became two of the pillars of liberalism.
The ideal of a self-directed destiny is the most fundamental value in our founding documents as well as the foundation of the American Dream. Writers in the 19th century, from Charles Dickens, to Alexis de Tocqueville, to Frederick Jackson Turner, all lauded the spirit of Americans who they considered as curious, intriguing, and at times, inspirational. As the journalist, John O’Sullivan wrote in 1845, it was Americans “manifest destiny to overspread the whole of the continent.”[1] Americans are, after all, an irascible bunch of high achievers.
In America, we decided to embrace capitalism as our economic system and democracy as our political system. Both have served us extraordinarily well. Together with some other basic structural advantages like being on a continent protected from most foreign threats by large bodies of water, and the only industrial capacity left in the world after World War II, The United States under capitalism and democracy became a superpower. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, a lone superpower. We were actually granted the unusual and perhaps unprecedented opportunity to quit staring at our feet to instead look out at a horizon of promise to set the example for the world and affect the advancement of humanity both at home and abroad.
For most of the 1990s and into the early 2000s, we Americans did look at the horizon more than at our feet and ushered in the digital age and the age of affluence which, among other things, marked the transition worldwide from the perpetual condition of scarcity that had been with us since the beginning of time, to the condition of abundance in terms of resources and wealth never before achieved in the history of humankind. It is amazing what you can achieve once you stop staring at your feet.
But then, we traded self-determination for self-absorption. (Affluence does have deleterious effects.) In what I have termed the “Age of Deceit,” Americans sacrificed three founding values in the last twenty years. We abandoned individualism for narcissism; perfectibility (making things better) for entitlement; and, exemplar exceptionalism (setting the humble example) for hubris. This period of crisis, now twenty years old, was marked by the War on Terror, the Great Recession, the pandemic, and now punctuated by a nearly completely dysfunctional federal government. The through-line thread has been our embrace of deceit amplified most shamelessly and hideously by the most prolific liar in American presidential history, Donald Trump.
Great crises do, however, produce great opportunities. By its nature, evolutionary change is a slow process whether you are observing genes, or social norms, or the broader operating systems of civilizations. However, the response to crises can create a moment in time when progress can accelerate faster than what Charles Darwin hypothesized in The Origin of Species. Lifting one’s eyes toward the horizon in the context of new realities and rethinking legacy norms and systems are essential to the advancement of humanity.
Two types of events in American history illustrate how these accelerated periods of progress can occur: awakenings and foundings. The first impacts the character of the citizenry and the second impacts the structures and systems by which those citizens govern themselves. Both are necessary to affect the rebirth of any society and today are necessary to save us Americans from our current selves; to restore American dynamism. Frankly, in America, we are overdue for both a re-awakening and a re-founding.
America’s two so-called “great” awakenings (early 18th and 19th centuries) were based in religious revivalist events. At their essence, however, their effect was to restore and reinvigorate the American character. While organized religion has, at best, a dubious track record (especially among leaders) at representing high moral character, the popularity of these awakenings does illustrate the nature of Americans who, at their core, want to be people of good character. Our prevalent and natural disposition is to achieve consonance between our behaviors and common virtues like honesty, humility, discipline, and hard work. Frankly, in this regard, the Age of Deceit in the last twenty years has been exceptional rather than normative. Although we have recently been exploited by some really bad actors, our history is full of better examples of leadership in all sectors of our society.
These first two awakenings also illustrate the ebb and flow of religion in America by and between the private, public, and political spheres of our society. When religion peaks, it is in all three spheres as it last did most recently in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Then, it retreats as it is doing today never leaving the private sphere, but back from the public and political spheres.
Although the religious right claims a third period of awakening in the 1980s, this period was not about reinvigorating virtues-based character; that claim is a ruse. It was about politicizing religion to gain power and attract financial support for Bible-pounding evangelists and a cadre of televangelists who preferred Gucci loafers and private jets to Florsheim shoes and Greyhound buses, let alone the sandals and walking staff of Jesus Christ. Their wallets were much more important to them as they swindled the souls of Americans.
Today, the question is where shall we turn to guide us to better behaviors and better days? How can we make a better America?
As for our national character, inasmuch as we are in a period of waning religiosity today, religious texts and preachings may not resonate. Thankfully, we do have a clear option. Our founding documents should suffice when considered together with the inspirations our founders took from classical literature and moral philosophy from ancient philosophers as well as philosophers from the period of Enlightenment (18th century). Cicero, Seneca, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, and Epictetus are among the ancients they studied (especially Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations). And, John Locke, David Hume, Edmund Burke, Henry St. John (Lord Bolingbroke), and Henry Home (Lord Kames) were among the British and Scottish philosophers our founders often cited from the Enlightenment period.
Although I will leave it up to our adult population to reestablish their own footings of character today, I do believe we need to demand that civics and moral philosophy return to the classroom as requirements for our children and young adults. Think of what I am suggesting as a second period of enlightenment, al la Locke, Hume et al. We might also include the works of more recent people like William James, Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, and poets like T.S. Elliot, Mary Oliver, and Langston Hughes, among many others.
Further, to bind our students to America in a meaningful and authentic manner, I would also suggest (as others have) that we require two years of national/community service of our high school graduates that would qualify them for a four-year college scholarship following their service. Not only would their service help bind them to their country and communities, it would undoubtedly make their subsequent college education much more meaningful and fulfilling. Whether we call it an awakening or enlightenment is not important; our national character most certainly needs a reboot.
On the structural issues, America also needs a reboot in the form of a third founding. After the Civil War, we had our second founding that was aimed principally at achieving a closer semblance to the founder’s aim held in the ideal that “all men are created equal.” In effect, we were recognizing that in the context of that postbellum era we could craft new amendments, laws, and policies to actualize an ideal. In particular, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments (abolishing slavery, establishing due process for all, and voting rights for all citizens, respectively) were directly intended to actualize that ideal that “all men are created equal.” Although these so-called “Reconstruction Amendments” were passed, they were subsequently attacked by certain justices in the Supreme Court and diluted repeatedly by what became collectively known as Jim Crow laws. While not yet fully realized today, they are largely intact; progress is, after all, marked by steps forward and steps backward, which is to say, irregular and ragged.
In all, since the Bill of Rights ten amendments in 1791, we have enacted seventeen more amendments. The point is, dynamism must be embraced to meet the conditions of the day. The First Amendment provides “the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”[2] We should exercise that right. Without amendments to our Constitution, revisions of law, and the evolution of norms, it is unlikely our Constitution and republic would have survived. Indeed, I expect our founders would be astonished that our republic has survived as long as it has.
In my opinion, we must recognize that our federal government has become locked into an abysmal state of inefficaciousness. Its scope must be dramatically narrowed with authority and resources returned to the states to deal with many issues we have (inappropriately) put on the back of our federal government. At both the federal and state level, we must also consider allowing the private sector to turn some of our issues into their opportunities. I recognize that suggestion is like touching the third rail for many of my leftward leaning friends, but we must all be open to new ideas. In addition, partisanship that has been institutionalized through gerrymandering must be reformed, and an electoral college that does not assure a fair and certain election must follow the lead of Maine and Nebraska to award electors proportionally to the popular vote (which can be done without an amendment to the Constitution).
I am sure others can think of further reforms to revitalize our federal government and heal the union. At some point, all sides will reach a level of frustration and fatigue to motivate them to entertain these discussions. That point may come sooner rather than later as we face election chaos in the next few months that while deeply concerning may also—finally—cause enough of us to demand fundamental changes to our structures and systems of governance.
I acknowledge that these are troubling times for many reasons and that the flames at our feet require our attention. I also know, however, that if we ignore the horizon, progress and greater well-being for humanity will remain perpetually beyond our reach. As long as we are focused on the short term, we will continue to be a victim of circumstance in the long term. Long-held and highly regarded virtues must be placed back on the table to be embraced with fidelity. The usage of “probity,” which the Cambridge Dictionary defines as “the quality of being honest and behaving correctly,” has dropped so low as to be considered archaic, today.[3] Perhaps TikTok can restore its use. Finally, we must ignore the fear mongers in our midst. Like anger and violence, stress and anxiety do not help solve problems; in most cases they make them worse. Lifting our eyes, embracing virtues, and ignoring the doomsayers will also lift our hearts and spirit.
It is our duty as adults and parents to assure that every future generation has the tools to build their own spine of character, and to build an appropriate and effective societal infrastructure through our constitutional, legal, and normative commitments so that they may thrive on their own terms.
If we accomplish this, the American beacon of hope that was once the light of the world will shine brightly again.
[1] Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), p. 151. Manifest Destiny and its contribution to new imaginings of America in the late 1800s are also explored in Patricia Limerick Nelson, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1987).
[2] See the Bill of Rights here: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript.
[3] To see the usage of “probity” since 1800, see Google NGram Viewer, https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=7&case_insensitive=on&content=probity.
