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What Does The American Creed Consist Of?
Writing in today’s Wall Street Journal, Charles Murray (W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute) delivers a masterful and broad examination of the heritage of America, the more recent course it has taken, and its connection to the Trump Phenomenon’ with his article Trump’s America.
Quoting eminent political scientist Samuel Huntington, he notes that two components of America’s national identity stand out … our Anglo-Protestant heritage and the “very idea of America” which is “something unique to us.” He uses the words of historian Richard Hofstadter to further illustrate this second point … “It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies but to be one.”
Murray proceeds to focus on this second point, desiring to answer this question of “what does our American ideology or creed consist of?” Murray summarizes three core values to this ideology … “egalitarianism, liberty and individualism.” He goes on to support this case and contrasts it with how it has lost its authority with the plight of the more and more marginalized lower and working class people who have “dropped out of some of the most basic institutions of American civic culture, especially work and marriage”. These folks form the core of a broad and diversified base of supporters for the Trump candidacy. They are rightfully angry at the ruling class and resent this new elitism that is more like that of European nobles than the past self-reliant, successful American upper class. Payback is hell and these folks have some truly righteous anger at Washington and the elites who have put them and their country in this mess.
However, before leaving the topic of this American Creed, I felt that Mr. Murray left out a large part of the equation. Huntington noted two components to our American national identity and the Anglo-Protestant heritage is of great import as well, which Tocqueville noted too. I am reminded of “The Golden Triangle of Freedom” as articulated by Os Guinness … “Freedom requires Virtue; Virtue requires Faith; and Faith requires Freedom ….”
I do fear that the current populist uprising, urged along by Donald Trump, has also left out these critical aspects of Faith and Virtue to our American Creed, in the defiant pursuit of egalitarianism, liberty and individualism. It is a shame that the candidate who does emphasize Faith and Virtue isn’t a reality TV star.
We should never forget the words of President John Adams … “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Published in General
I really like Dennis Prager’s American Trinity explanation. Perhaps Murray agrees with his take…he certainly seemed to echo the idea.
Afternoon Columbo,
In Murray’s article, http://www.aei.org/publication/trumps-america/, he notes that middle and lower class males are dropping out of the work force. In “Coming Apart”, Murray notes that in the 50’s, the idea that a man would not energetically seek work would be shameful. Being a good provider was a marker for success for men here and in England. Murray suggests that if the successful upper class would preach what they practice that this would be a help to shape the behaviors in the working classes in a more responsible direction. I think that Murray does not understand why there has been a cultural change. Also I think Murray has a rather clinical and passive understanding of how private and civic virtue are sustained.
When you note that virtue has been thought by many to be essential to our country’s success, I think part of virtue is an optimism about the future, which in my mind means the belief that the next generation will have it better. This cultural change in which the family and children are viewed in a different way, is seen in the indifference to marriage and to the number of men who avoid work and seek to live off others or the government. The consequence of this is crippling for children and our future and yet the virtue which our current culture prizes most is expansive, non-judgmental tolerance. Murray may be wonderful in the accuracy of the current state of society, he offers little understanding of how crucial personal and civic virtue is and how society might regain those virtues.
Great post. I agree.
(Except for a small point, that liberty is a core value. I think that if it were, then responsibility would be as well, since these are inseparable components of human dignity. But egalitarianism already means equality of human dignity, so liberty and responsibility are derived, not core.)
Thanks for posting this Columbo. I’d read this earlier today and thought it was pretty important. I see that 9th District noted the Prager American Trinity which is what I though of right away as well. While Prager’s and Murray’s are pretty good, Mark Camp sews it altogether with the ‘responsibility’. I’d argue that it fits better than Murray’s ‘individualism’.
Liberty, in that you should be free to do as your abilities, interests/passions take you balanced with ‘responsibility’ – that one is responsible for oneself, one’s family and that affects one’s neighborhood, community and ,ultimately, country.
It’s gratifying to read several DC area ‘thinkers’ detailing the genuine concerns of the Fish-Town set. Was the cost of labor unrealistic due to labor unions and increased competition after World War II rebuilding? Of course – they took their ‘haircut’. Those other factors though: employment law, environmental regulations (driving up costs of electricity), health care costs, state and municipal taxes to pay for bloated public sector, flooding labor market with illegal immigrants, trade agreements making those low cost nations even more attractive. They have every right to be angry and the longer people can’t provide, the greater the draw of the subsidized life and the pathologies that come with it.
That was my thought as I read the post. Nice to see it the first response.
The revolutions are over and the French one won! Next comes coup.
While I recognize that I am hollering down a well, I occasionally feel the need to say that no, the anger at the “ruling class” is not rightful. The “ruling class” is not responsible for what ails America. The responsibility falls squarely on the voters, who want lots of government goodies, but not to pay for them. Voters who want us to defeat enemies abroad, but not to send any troops for the task. Voters who want protection against foreign people or goods entering the country, but still want low prices for the things they buy. Schizophrenic voters who don’t understand consequences or trade-offs, or the limits of what governments can do.
In a democracy, we get the leaders we deserve. And we deserve this. If we vote for Trump, we will deserve even worse. And we will get it.
Agreed. But… this didn’t happen overnight. It took generations of Progressive politics to achieve this current situation. Ironically, the Ruling Class is complicit in creating the bloc of voters you describe. For it was the Ruling Class that created the welfare programs that made the voters dependent.
We are now about to reap the whirlwind, I fear.
The “ruling class” is not that smart. They are craven, cowardly, and stupid. They tell the voters whatever the voters want to hear, and buy votes with other people’s money whenever they can. They didn’t create us. We created them.
Hmmm –An interesting perspective. I’m not sure I completely agree. (Can I partially agree?) The progressive movement was begun by intellectual elites, who were certain they knew what was best for everybody. On the other hand – long after it was evident to anyone with a pea-sized brain that Progressivism simply does not work on any level, the Ruling Class has continued to champion the same nonsense – probably because, as you say, they wanted to buy votes.
We may be splitting hairs. (Nothing wrong with that.) Either way – Columbo was right: In a democracy, we get the leaders we deserve. And the leaders we currently have are stinking up the joint.
The idiocy that is socialism seems to spring up like a weed in every generation, no matter how completely it was discredited by the preceding generation. It plays to fundamental human weaknesses, like greed, envy, and stupidity. Did it spring up in the Soviet Union because the ruling class (the Czars) wanted it to? Hell no. It comes out of nowhere but the weakness of the human soul. It sprung up in Imperial Rome. It sprung up among the Anababtists of the Reformation. In the last century it appeared through most of the world. It doesn’t take any GOPe to create it.
Great point. The late Scott Peck, MD, author of The Road Less Travelled, made the argument that laziness was the original sin. Adam and Eve desired what they had not earned. I think it would be fair to argue that laziness is a central motivator in the attraction to socialism. If that’s the case, it goes back to the very dawn of man.