Work In Progress

“We may consider each generation as a distinct nation. With a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“One of the tendencies of democracy, which Plato and other antidemocrats warned against a long time ago, was the danger that rhetoric would displace or at least overshadow epistemology; that is, the temptation to allow the problem of persuasion to overshadow the problem of knowledge. Democratic societies tend to become more concerned with what people believe than with what is true, to become more concerned with credibility than with truth. All these problems become accentuated in a large-scale democracy like ours, which possesses the apparatus of modern industry. And the problems are accentuated still further by literacy, by instantaneous communication, and by the daily plague of words and images.”

– Daniel Boorstin, written in 1974

One of the oddities of American culture, as pointed out by Daniel Boorstin, one of the great historians of US History and long-time Librarian of Congress, is that America does not have a political theory, but Americans think that we do. If I had to guess, I think if you asked any American off the street what the true American political theory is, they would say one of three things – Top two would be “democracy” or “freedom” and a distant third would be “capitalism”. Of course, none of these actually are political theories. Democracy is a system for assigning governing authority, capitalism is a system for assigning resources, and freedom is a vague and usually undefined feeling. But why is democracy an ideal system? Why is capitalism so good? What is freedom? I think most people would be hard pressed to answer these questions.

In Europe and in other places of the world, huge amounts of thought, writing, and exchange of ideas has been spent on trying to figure out questions like this, going all the way back to ancient Greece. This amount of time and argument has led others to be much more laid back regarding their political systems. They can be seen as systems only, as intellectual traditions, without the baggage of ideology. Overseas, if a country is a democracy and wants to have some aspects of a socialist economy, then what’s the big deal, whatever works, right?

Weirdly, Americans see themselves as more practical, while in reality they are much more idealistic. The democratic tradition in America goes back to the physical realities of our earliest colonial beginnings. When it takes three months to cross the Atlantic, we can’t ask the King what to do about every little thing. But if we’re going to decide issues for ourselves, why should I listen to the guy I just watched puking over the side of the Mayflower for the last three months? He has no authority. There’s enough land to head out and do my own thing, but unless I want to starve or get killed, I have to work with these people. So we all agree, when there’s a question about what to do, we put it up for a vote. For day to day things someone needs to be in charge, who’s it going to be? Put it up for a vote. This gives legitimacy to the local government – if everyone agrees that voting is going to decide something, then you can’t question it later. Democracy by default, without anyone ever really thinking about why.

How about religious freedom? Well trading for things all the way back to England takes too long, but the colonies are big enough to trade with each other and satisfy most needs. But Puritans have their own laws in Massachusetts, Baptists have theirs in Rhode Island, protestant Dutch in New York(Amsterdam), Quakers in Pennsylvania, Catholics in Maryland, Anglicans in Virginia, and Presbyterians in the Carolinas. Each colony had their own laws and religions and so all were basically forced by necessity to agree to not mess with each other’s people. Religious freedom by default. No one argued why this was a good thing (except maybe Roger Williams), it was just necessary, and worked.

While I’ve noted here that most Americans seem to not want to get into theory and philosophy, they also don’t like to believe that what makes America the “exceptional country” is nothing much; we just kinda got dropped off in the woods and figured it out. And so to avoid this, a kind of American mythology has grown around the founding – the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution. These have become something like holy relics that must be believed in and cannot be questioned. But by refusing to think about them we deprive ourselves of what guidance the Founding Fathers did provide.

We imagine that the founders equipped us from the nation’s birth with a perfect and complete political theory. An example of this today is constitutional fundamentalists, who believe that the solution to America’s problems is going back to the original intent of the founders in the constitution. However, this idea is disputed by the founder’s own writings, such as the quote I reference above. And capitalism didn’t exist at the time of the founding, the Industrial Revolution hadn’t even happened yet.

Many believe that in this perfect system, American values are implicit. There is a belief that a true American Way of Life will lead inevitably to a true American Way of Thought. You must believe the same things that “we” do or you must not be a true American. There is a sense of the Founding Fathers being almost contemporaries, as somehow real even in today’s society.

In reality, the founders designed a system which has been hugely changed many times in order to account for changing technology, changing values, changing lives. There has never been any comprehensive discussion of what America stands for, or what it is trying to achieve, let alone whether or not the current system comes close to achieving it. If you ask someone what is great about America, I would expect that a lot of people would be offended. Shouldn’t it be obvious? If you don’t know why America is great, you must not be a real American.

If American political thought is so vague, so is the definition of heresy. When there has been no effort to define American greatness, there is a vacuum that is filled by each group, or even each individual, making the determination of what is truly American, and therefore what is un-American. I blame Thomas Jefferson for some of this – “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” Yeah, but why don’t we just go ahead and try to nail them down anyway. Let’s just make sure we’re all on the same page.

Despite the vagueness of American historical and political thought, there is a common belief going around that since the founders gave us a perfect system, and it is self-evident that democracy and capitalism are without question superior to everything else, all we need to do is to somehow live up to the original plan. That we’ve lost an inexplicable something, some mythical ancient values that will solve the problems of the present, and thus Make America Great Again.

Rather, even a cursory study of early US history will find that the Founding Fathers were very unsure of themselves. The best of them worried constantly that they were doing the right things, and went to strenuous efforts to create a system that could be changed for the changing times. And it was expected that future generations would not be bound by their decisions. If the founding was great, its the system of flexible and adaptable government that was intended to perpetuate the greatness. Historically it has been the case that the most changeable times have been our greatest, and the times of ideological hardening have been the low points.

Unfortunately, the intentional avoidance of political philosophy and questioning of our system, has led to a situation where history is the only basis for legitimacy. The problem here is that people are bad at history, and for the most part don’t even really know what it is. History is the practice of critically questioning the past to find truth. Mandatory belief in assumed truth leads only to replacing true greatness with symbolic greatness – statues, flags, songs, pledges.

To the founders, American greatness was aspirational. It is always in the future, to be worked toward, never in the past. The founders were philosophers, and if we truly want to live up to their vision, then we must question everything, just as they did.

Do you?

If you’re interested in this, check out The Americans by Daniel Boorstin.

Well, What Do You Know?

How do we know things? How can we tell what is a fact? In order for people to communicate with each other in some kind of reasonable way, there must at least be agreement on what an objective fact is. Think of some of the political discussions you’ve had or seen lately, and you will likely agree that this is a question that should concern people, even if you think its everyone else that needs to get their facts straight.

Epistemology is the philosophical study of the nature of knowledge. If you feel yourself zoning out just pretend you didn’t read that part. People today seem to generally believe that they dislike philosophy because it is supposedly abstract and useless in today’s world. Having decided that they are not interested in philosophy, people then do not try to understand what it is, and therefore do not realize that they are constantly using it in their lives. Do you believe that there are such things as Good and Bad? Do you believe that there are such things as Right and Wrong? How do you decide what is important versus what is not important? None of these questions can be answered with any scientific certainty and so people have to make value judgments based on their personal philosophy. Since people generally refuse to think about this, it is typically done very sloppily.

Today we have a general idea that scientific knowledge is the only basis for concrete fact. What you can put your hands on. What you can “prove”. This system is called Empiricism, the concentration on measurement and observation as a basis for knowledge. But this only goes back a few hundred years. Throughout history there have been numerous ways for people to “know” things about the world, that have been more or less legitimate in their times. There has been theological truth which is revealed to us through some kind of divine process. There has been custom and tradition, the idea that things are the way they are because they have always been that way. Plato thought that there were inherent truths that existed independently of man, and which we could know through Reason. His student Aristotle disagreed and felt that the only real root of knowledge was sensory experience.

Today we have a difficult situation. Anything on the internet or social media cannot be relied on, video can be edited, documents can be doctored or gotten rid of, the media and everyone else for that matter is assumed to have a bias or agenda that they cannot think outside of. So how do we know what to believe? If everything is equally suspect, then any belief an individual chooses is equally justified. People believe whatever it is they prefer and see this as tantamount to holding an opinion they are entitled to.

This, to be honest, is Nihilism; the belief that facts are relative, and that any position held on any given question is equal to any other. Moral questions become nothing more than cultural loyalty tests. Truth, today, is difficult to know, but not impossible. STEM education may get you a job, but the humanities teach you to have humanity, history and philosophy teach you to use reason and logic. These have been discounted in our society for a long time now.

WWI destroyed Western Civilization’s faith in the ability to find truth. WWII and the Holocaust reminded us what the world is like without it. I’m talking here about big “C” Civilization. Civilization is knowing that there is a truth, and that it can be known, and that those opposed to it are wrong. It’s being inside the circle of firelight as opposed to outside in the dark. Civilization respects truth, as opposed to barbarism where only strength and winning are valued.

Next time you’re having a conversation about current events or something in the news, listen to the other person and to yourself. Do you “agree to disagree”. Is there a mutual feeling that each of you is entitled to believe whatever you believe? Is there mutual doubt that either of you can even “know” what is true?

There is an objective truth. It can be known, with effort and thought. An “opinion” that is opposed to the truth is not an “opinion”, it is incorrect. The way this makes you feel is irrelevant.

If you want to read about the situations this problem can lead to, check out The Rebel by Albert Camus

Labor Day

Enjoying your long weekend? I’ve been hearing a lot lately on TV and in private conversations regarding the need to preserve our history, our heritage some call it. So I’m sure everyone is reflecting on the meaning of the Labor Day holiday. No? Well allow me to say a few words.

Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894. By that time America had developed and industrialized, but laws governing labor had not kept pace. Working hours, conditions, wages and wage equality, child labor, and many other issues weighed heavily on the American industrial worker, what we would call today blue collar workers. Factory owners, mill owners, mine owners, railroad owners, all of these could basically do whatever they wanted and it was seen as only natural for a free market capitalist economy. If they owned the factory, who has the right to put any kind of limit at all on the way they run the place?

But over time, due primarily to the efforts of organized labor, consciousness of these problems, particularly workplace safety, became widespread. Organized demonstration across the country made more Americans aware of the situation. Support in public opinion grew, and laws were changed. These activities, and the government response to them was not always, or even usually, non-violent. Strikes and demonstrations were most often met with resistance from owners and managers. Owners and managers were typically involved in politics, knowing politicians socially and supporting political machines and local law enforcement. This caused police and government response to side, almost exclusively, with capital. The means for disrupting the labor movement included financial penalties for anyone taking part, the hiring of “private investigators” like the Pinkertons who could be armed, company police forces, the hiring of goon squads of local criminals to rough up demonstrators, the use of company and police infiltrators to subvert labor organizations, police actions, and ultimately calling out the National Guard and military. Owners and politicians that stood to benefit would then use the inevitable violence to paint the labor organizations as anti-American, anti-police, communists, anarchists, immigrants, and foreign/outside agitators only interested in wanton property destruction and the undermining of the American way.

I’ll run through a few of the notable events, though this is not even close to exhaustive.

1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago – The Knights of Labor, an organization that had explicitly rejected socialism and anarchism (not automatic at this point) was conducting a peaceful demonstration outside of the McCormick Harvesting Machine plant demanding an 8-hour workday. For several days the ownership of the plant had used hired Pinkerton agents to try to break up the demonstration by means including firing into the crowd with police taking no action. On May 3, while one of the organizers was making a speech, the police themselves fired on the crowd killing two workers. The next day turned violent as well, with fighting between workers and police, culminating an an unknown party setting of a bomb in the middle of the crowd. Of the workers that were rounded up and arrested by police, six were charged with murder, and despite no evidence of having any involvement with the violence, they were sentenced to death.

1892 Homestead steel worker strike – Pinkertons hired by ownership attacked workers were military weapons including machine guns. When the workers set up fortifications and defended themselves with personal weapons such as Winchester rifles, the state militia was called in to support the Pinkertons and crushed the workers. Needless to say no one involved with the ownership forces was charged with anything.

1894 Pullman Railroad strikes against a reduction in wages. 30 workers killed

1912 Bread and Roses Strike – In Lawrence, MA workers from the Washington Mills, American Woolen Company (maybe you’ve seen the footbridge on Canal Street going up toward Lawrence Street, near the current courthouse and going toward the Claddaugh) struck when a portion of the mill collapsed. They demanded better working conditions. Massachusetts called in the National Guard, which ended up clearing crowds at bayonet point. The Guard also enforced what would really amount to almost a siege, keeping people from sending their children out of town so that there was more pressure on the demonstrators. Even considering the deaths by bayonet of several strikers, the siege in particular drew national attention and turned public opinion against the owners and the Guard, who were seen as using military tactics to target women and children.

Striking workers facing the bayonets of the Massachusetts National Guard in Lawrence, MA 1912

Over the years, labor organizations around the country chose a universal date to parade rather than demonstrating for specific causes. This showed people the peaceful nature of the movement and allowed reasonable debate of what today we consider obvious reasonable demands. Basically every right we enjoy as employees today, are founded on these efforts.

So what do we learn? In America, it seems a tempting position to believe that the Founding Fathers handed down to us a perfect system, and we only need to live up to it. That people who criticize or want to change it, must be anti-American, or anti-authority. A study of American history will dispute this in short order. From time to time, a segment of American society has called for changes in order to find a greater expression of equality, for greater responsiveness by law enforcement to the needs of the public rather than the needs of the current power structure, or simply that rights that are already recognized as universal be enforced. These have been met, every single time, by resistance from those who already enjoy the rights that are being demanded. Without exception, people seeking rights are painted as selfish, greedy, in favor of anarchy and chaos, traitors or at least the willing dupes of foreign powers or outside agitators, and haters of Capitalism, America and good old law and order.

So does Labor Day really recognize a disruptive, subversive element in American society? Are contemporaries, who now find themselves in the mold of those criticizing systemic resistance to universal rights, just hating their country? Should they go someplace else if they think there’s someplace better? Of course not.

Rather, they’re continuing the one true American theme – refusal to accept anything less that the self-evident rights that are promised in the foundation of the country. Demanding rights that are due to any human being is the highest patriotism for an American. Thats why it is celebrated today, and why it will be in the future.