THE DEATH OF THE AMERICAN POLITIC
Dr. Gerry Lower
Dr. Gerry Lower
Thomas Jefferson was a dialectician in thought and a Deist in belief and, from this theological ground, he provided the intellectual foundations of American Democracy. Jefferson's theology was bottomlined in the concept that Deity was located on the human inside, in the "head and heart" of every person, that the highest authority is the "will of the people, substantially declared." From this concept of Deity and from nascent (dialectic) Christian values comes the concept of universal human rights (G. Lower, BushWatch, July, 2003).
It is something more than telling that a past curator of the National Museum, Daniel J. Boorstin, wrote a wonderful book entitled, "The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson" in 1948. It is similarly telling that this effort, at the dawn of "political correctness," avoided serious discussion of Jefferson's theology, which is so entirely at odds with traditional religion (and so entirely based upon and consistent with nascent Christianity).
Historically, of course, the dialectic values beneath Jefferson's Democracy were compromised right from the start by religious Tory capitalism. The Constitution was penned in Jefferson's absence and it veered sharply right in departing the spirit of Jefferson's Declaration, religiously denying rights to women, blacks and non-landowners. Franklin even prophesized that this "fault" would ultimately lead to a nation under despotic rule and occupied by people who would not even know the difference.
Welcome to America in the 3rd millennium. Welcome to Bush World.
The 1920s brought this dialectic to the political forefront with the emergence of labor unions and farm and ranch organizations hoping to achieve a semblance of fairness in American socio-economics by empowering those who must work and produce for a living. Robert Tawney wrote a marvelous book in 1926, ("Religion and the Rise of Capitalism," The New American Library, 1954) that provided serious insight into the role of JudeoRoman religious attitudes in driving imperialism, colonialism and capitalism. By FDR's administration, the President's wife was a card-carrying socialist. Evenso, both political parties during the first half of the 20th century managed to revolve around political center with minimal polarization (Krugman, "America the Polarized," NY Times, Jan. 4, 2002).
The dialectic provided by our Fathers (between those choosing to share without restriction and those choosing to compete without limit) has had a profound downside for American socioeconomics. As complementary opposites, the extreme socialist (we are all the same) and the extreme capitalist ($ome of u$ are cho$en) positions left virtually no room for Jefferson's meritocracy (the dialectic synthesis), with individual reward as a function of individual time and talent, experience and contribution. The result in America is a socioeconomic order in which the skilled and talented are nearer the bottom of the heap, while business administrators rule the day in a world quite upside down by Jeffersonian standards.
Following World War II and the postwar success of capitalism in producing wealth, both political parties were obliged to operate on the same side of the traditional dialectic, to create an entirely new dialectic between liberal secular capitalism and conservative religious capitalism. Capitalism was no longer seen as one of several socioeconomic options worthy of consideration within the frameworks of Democracy, but as the sole chosen way of a war victorious and chosen people, a people whose wealth and power provided evidence of the favoritism shown them by their god, the reward for having faith, all of which served to justify self-righteous claims to worldly dominion and control. With capitalism thusly empowered, there was a need to solidify that power, and the stage was set for complete polarization of the American politic.
The rightward shift to political polarization emerged in public in 1980 with the Reagan administration's overt pandering to the religious right for fiscal support and votes, and the movement went exponential in 1994 with the Southern Baptist takeover of the Texas Republican party. This evolutionary strand reached completion with the emergence of Old Testament JudeoRoman fundamentalism ("compassionate" conservatism) directly in the Oval Office, compliments of an unelected, court-appointed Bush administration.
As a result, the religious right wing, mostly Republican, like the JudeoRoman church-states before it, has pursued a complete tyranny over the minds of the people via control over their government's institutions and policies and control over their press, employing secretiveness and propaganda laced with fabrications and lies. The secular left wing, mostly Democrat, has been reduced to dumbness and impotence, lost entirely from its liberal roots on the side opposite capitalism. Unaware that empowering capitalism signaled the death of the traditional American politic, America proceeded to make a god of mammon. The left wing is unable to envision an alternative to the post WW II chosen "American Way" because it is now integral to that program and to the resulting problems. Within the "intellectual" confines of crony capitalism, there simply are no solutions to the problems created by capitalism itself.
In other words, the radical shift in the American political dialectic since World War II has left both liberals and conservatives on the capitalistic side of the traditional dialectic. Moreover, this self-evident shift has taken place without much public or academic notice, an indication of the rampant sociocultural blindness emergent in America under capitalistic dominion.
Nevermind family values. The creation of a socio-economic system requiring both parents to work is seen as "progress." Nevermind community values. The creation of a vertical national economy with large corporations eating up the horizontal local economies which held our communities together is seen as "progress." Nevermind national values. The creation of a capitalistic ("one ill, one pill, one bill" ) medicine and a root-level crisis in medical ethics is seen as "progress." Exemplifying too much of a "good" thing, this capitalistic "progress" has demeaned everything that really counted in America, everything meaningful, from parent-child relationships to the quality of education to the celebration of Christ's birth to the principles of Jeffersonian Democracy.
The America people have been gradually but surely hijacked by the rich, religious Republican right wing, those who believe that money, no matter how acquired, is the primary measure of human worth, that it bestows the right to power, and that there is never enough of the stuff. Employing this approach to socioeconomic problem-solving, America has solved not one single social problem since World War II, but rather has made most social problems even worse, with capitalism's penchant for dealing with symptoms instead of causes, it's employment of social bandaids to palliate systemic disease, all in the name of preserving capitalism and enhancing the ruthless pursuit of wealth and the rule of the already-too-rich.
Coming to worship mammon as a nation was, obviously, a "mistake" that had to be made and was made within the larger embrace of human cultural evolution. Jefferson and Franklin both knew well that the dialectic human values beneath Democracy would have global human appeal, that the "ball of liberty" would "roll round the world." They were also aware that if everyone does not have Democracy, then no one really has it. The larger evolutionary program simply called for further human unification, and JudeoRoman religion and crony capitalism would ultimately supply the greed-driven motivations and the rationalizations for economic globalization.
The American people, over the span of 200 years (Hamilton), 20 years(Reagan), and 2 years (Bush), have been (exponentially) coerced into abiding an ancient religious script which they had no hand in authoring. This coercion was a "mistake" that will have to be corrected as soon as adequate numbers of people can see it, not so much as a mistake but as an evolutionary necessity in the interest of continued human socioeconomic unification (from tribal to national to global organization via imperialism, colonialism and capitalism).
Capitalism has, since World War II, produced a global human economic arena not yet worthy of being called a global economy. Accordingly, it's evolutionary purpose fulfilled, capitalism must now stand aside in the interest of political unification under the auspices of Democracy, the genuine article. Religious capitalism will, of course, never stand aside, and it will never listen to reason. The people are left to watch it die of its own self-righteous hand.
In the historical sense, it is critically important for American citizens to recognize that American Democracy has de-evolved to occupy a position beneath and opposed to the philosophical position which gave it birth. We have come full circle only to see ourselves from beneath and behind ... and it is not a very pretty sight for a nation ostensibly birthed from the concepts of fairness and equality. Until the people recognize the historical significance of current reality, their problems will elude comprehension and control, and they will continue to be led astray by capitalists who fear and despise Democracy.
In the evolutionary sense, it is critically important for Americans to recognize that America is integrally involved in a larger, implicit cultural program that transcends "compassionate" conservatism and the pax Americana it envisions. The outcome of this delusion has already been determined by the JudeoRoman mythology which drives the program, all branches of western religion being apocalyptic and self-terminating. Until the people recognize the evolutionary significance of current reality, their problems will elude comprehension and control, and they will continue to be led astray by religious fundamentalists who fear and despise nascent Christianity.
Thoughtful and caring people will be largely unable do anything to alter the necessary evolutionary outcome, as vengeance-based religion and crony capitalism continue to discredit themselves from the global political arena. If the people choose to fight the good fight for Democracy and freedom or if they choose to fight for JudeoRoman Bushism, the outcome will be quite the same. While waiting for that outcome (as religious prophecy blindly fulfills itself), the people will need to rethink Jefferson's Democracy in contemporary Information Age terms, and the people will need to re-establish Jefferson's God, the "will of the people," as the direct decision-making apparatus of their nation. It is time to return to common human sense and the dialectic wisdom of our Fathers. It is time to grow up as a nation, socially and spiritually.
"Surely this is not an exorbitant demand" of the citizens of the world's first Democracy.
Jefferson and Franklin and all good Americans nearly pulled it off 200 years ago.
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