America isn’t just a land, a particular group of people or a set of institutions. It’s also a set of ideals demanding realization. President Obama has repeatedly emphasized the phrase “a more perfect union,” as said in the Constitution’s preamble, in his calls for progressive reform.
While the preamble does talk about liberty, justice and prosperity, the idea of something “more perfect” strikes me as odd.
For one thing, what’s perfection? When you describe something as perfect, what are you really describing? Has someone ever said they’ve had a perfect day? Well, what are the essential qualities of that perfect day?
In gymnastics, a perfect ten is rarely given; it’s an acknowledgment of a flawless performance. So maybe something perfect is something flawless. We’ve all heard the phrase “well nobody’s perfect.” That’s true, but does that mean perfection is overrated? That the status quo is good enough? Or could it be possible that there needs to be a constant striving for an unrealizable ideal? What a displeasing prospect.
If Obama is right that the Constitution has a clause demanding a more perfect union, what does that mean for us? Can that phrase, a more perfect union, form the basis for progressive reform despite that words such as freedom and liberty have been appropriated by the right?
Currently, progressives talk about their issues in terms of justice and fairness, but those values haven’t been as central to American history like freedom and liberty have been.
What’s unique after all about America is that it is the realization of a debate on the proper limits of government and the necessary institutions for a free and just society. That’s Civics 101. It seems that the debate has been truncated after free and before any discussion of what is just.
Consequently, the health care debate is a manifestation of anxious liberals who want universal coverage for all against the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and right wingers who hold protests demanding their freedom. Demagogues like Glenn Beck make millions of dollars feeding and tapping into the right’s anger regarding Obama and the Democrats.
Literally, there’s a fear of change, especially at a time of massive economic dislocation. This anger isn’t limited to health care or climate change, rather it’s anger that’s been building up for some time because America, like it or not, is facing a relative decline in comparison to the rest of the world.
This anger is using health care as an outlet just like it did during the stimulus debate, the federal bailout plan and climate change legislation.
So what are we left with? An empty call for a more perfect union when we don’t even know what that means? Maybe it’s just a phrase inserted in the preamble to reflect the deep divisions between states in the 1800s. Or maybe it’s a way for liberals to articulate their vision of what America should be despite what America is.
That’s the central difference between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives often overrate tradition and practice.
Hence, during the civil rights era in 1957, William F. Buckley, the intellectual founder of modern conservativism, wrote, “The central question that emerges… is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes: the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race.”
Wow. Conservatives don’t hold the same views now, obviously, but I’m interested in what kind of mentality one must have to write that kind of statement.
Tradition and practice aren’t values in and of themselves. Sure they reflect years of accumulated wisdom, but modern society’s changing at a faster and faster pace. Can you even imagine how people made plans without the Internet, cellphones or BlackBerrys?
If it’s true that society is more dynamic now, then doesn’t that call for a re-examination of our culture’s traditions and practices? If anything, tradition is arbitrary in the sense that none of us chose which tradition we’ve been born into just like none of us chose our race.
If that tradition is to be meaningful to us as free individuals, then we should be able to choose the kinds of practices and systems of belief that we live under.
If that’s true, then on what basis can we ground our choice? On the basis of our ideals. Hence, the demand for a “more perfect union” is the Founders’ way to leave open the possibility of reform and criticism. If human beings really are imperfect, by nature or by intentional design, then it’s even more important to keep open the possibility for change.
Alex • Sep 28, 2009 at 8:21 pm
I have to frankly admit that I have no idea what the actual point you are trying to make throughout this article is. However, I will at least attempt to point out one of the logical errors undergirding the last ranting portion about tradition. Perhaps you think that the Constitution, or America, was the product of a “debate”, but in reality America and its Constitution was the product of hundreds of years of English history and the building of social and legal institutions in accordance with traditions, yes traditions, of limited government and common law. Our independence was a reaffirmation of rights we enjoyed as Englishmen that had been violated by the Crown, not the invention of new ones as Americans that we then imposed upon our pre-existing relationship with England.
The very concept of law that constantly changes and grows organically from confrontation with everyday life is fundamentally an Anglo-American common law principle and is not be found in the Roman law of continental Europe. So when you say that tradition is arbitrary, but that we should rather follow abstract “ideals”, I beg the question where those “ideals” you believe in came from and whether they in reality are the distillation of traditions grown out of a common historical experience that you have been privileged to be born into, not that you “chose”.