SELFISH-GOVERNMENT:

Self-government? (Paul Cella)

In the first paragraph of The Federalist, Publius unfurls the tremendous central inquiry of that great work of political philosophy:

It seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide, by their conduct and example, the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.

Reflection and choice. This could be designated The American Question, for it is the quintessence of American political philosophy: the question of self-government. Enshrined it is also, in the thunderous first words of our own Constitution, to the defense of which Publius lent his energetic pen: We, the People. The remarkable but too infrequently remarked political philosopher Willmoore Kendall would have emended it, with all the pregnancy of the term, to read, "We, the virtuous people." But that is a digression. The American Question can be stated thusly: Is a large and diverse republic of self-governing people an enduring proposition? I would contend that 225 years on, the answer is still not obvious. [..

Everywhere self-government is in retreat, assailed by collectivist forces and harried by creeping nihilism which deprives its traditions and institutions of vitality. The Citizen, the basic unit of self-government, once buttressed by these traditions, is being transformed once more into the Subject, deracinated from his moral and spiritual bearings, bereft of all the thick and unspoken, often unperceived, ballast which steadies him in this tumultuous world. Where once tradition and richness formed the panoply of tough and supple defenses for the individual against the world, now we see those defenses failing, with only the state to replace them, or the corporation, which either apes the state or falls before it. The Subject replaces the Citizen, even as his eyes are clouded and his weapons of resistance and counterstrike dulled by the bounty of economic plentitude and the intoxicating narcotics of modern mass entertainment. I do not say that the rout or even the slow dissolution ending in defeat of self-government is imminent, for there are hopeful signs lurking about in unpredictable places, and always the ways of the Lord are mysterious; but as I am in a sour mood, I must confess to sympathy with the words of Salvianus as the Fall of Rome neared: "The Roman Empire is luxurious but it is filled with misery. It is dying but it laughs." The American Question remains an open one.

One only wishes that Mr. Cella was right and that the Death of the West was occurring because of external forces, that the people were being deprived, against their will, of the power of self-government. Sadly though, what we see at work here is exactly the problem that conservatism has predicted for some two hundred years now will strangle democracy, that the eventual failure of republican virtue in the people themselves must lead them to exchange freedom for security and a tyranny of the majority.
Posted by Orrin Judd at September 5, 2002 4:04 PM