I came across this recent talk entitled “Sensus Communis and Nature’s Law: Why Communities Know Natural Law Better Than Philosophers” given by Patrick Deneen at a conference at Princeton. It supports Mike McG's dissent to my posts about the perils of allowing our social lattices to disintegrate and why kids' attitudes, and those of society as a whole, are trending toward lower levels of social empathy:
Tocqueville was not uncongnizant of the reality of America’s official philosophical doctrine, the more individualistic and self-interested claims of its official Lockeanism. He noted a strange fact about Americans – every action they undertake, even those that are clearly motivated by fellow-feeling and self-sacrifice, tended to be justified in terms of self-interest. He writes almost with a kind of perplexity over this American propensity, writing that “they do not do themselves justice; for one sometimes sees citizens in the United States as elsewhere abandoning themselves to the disinterested and unreflective sparks that are natural to man; but the Americans scarcely avow that they yield to movements of this kind. They would rather do more honor to their philosophy than to themselves.” (502). What Tocqueville identifies is a gap or lacuna between the official language of Americans and their actions. What he saw was the practical legacy of Puritanism – the active engagement of self-governing individuals toward the achievement of the common good in conformity with the Good – but what he heard was philosophical Lockeanism, that stated claim which the philosophy is more honored than the actions. He identified a puzzling disjuncture between word and deed, and worried whether over time word would begin to shape deed, whether our actions would increasingly conform to our claims. In worried tones he wrote, “one must expect that individual interest will become more than ever the principle and unique motive of men’s actions; but it remains to know how each man will understand his individual interest.”
Yesterday, Jim Ceaser suggested that one test of the fitness – even naturalness – of the Natural Rights Republic was its success of the past 200+ years, one that has provided a stable political settlement and widespread prosperity for many Americans. To his at-least half-glass full analysis, let me conclude by adding my own at-least half-empty portion of the glass. By Vico’s estimatation, we are entering into what he predicted was a new barbarism – the “barbarism of reflection” when philosophies of abstraction would lead to the evisceration of culture and the demise of civilization itself. . . . Vico’s analysis finally suggests the discomfiting notion that America is at least an inhospitable place for community and the lived experience within the natural law, and may even be designed to eviscerate its lived existence, inasmuch as much of its official philosophy was grounded in the abstract natural rights reasoning that can trace its lineage back to Descartes, Hobbes and Locke.
Moreover, Tocqueville’s observation that Americans will be likely over time to conform their actions to their “official philosophy” suggests that it may be too soon to judge the success of this project. It may well be that the apparent success of the American experiment may more fundamentally derive from its first founding – its first voice – an inheritance upon which the “second voice” of the Natural Rights tradition has been parasitic without the capacity to replenish what it has drawn down. Relying on the self-sacrifice of families, religion, communities and citizens, the official philosophy at the same time empties those institutions and roles of their vitality and officially sanctions a view of human anthropology that undermines their legitimacy. Gathering evidence all around us – the destruction of the family, the depletion of communities as the meritocracy siphons off the most talented young people for bit parts on Wall Street, the depravity of our schools, the debasement of our universities, to the emptying of our Churches, the degradation of our public servants, the corruption of our economy, and the destruction of the natural world on which we rely for our lives – all this and more prevents me from sharing Jim’s confidence that we can declare “mission accomplished.”
That's about as robust an indictment of American Liberalism and its Natural Rights tradition as you're going to find, and I agree with much of it–but for different reasons. There's a lot to be said in response to these ideas, but let me make a few quick points:
First, both Toqueville and Deneen are attacking the classical Liberal strain in American thinking out of which Libertarianism and the Tea Party movement have developed. This strain of the American soul has historically been more responsible for this communal destruction than the typical Whiggish Liberal, whose "bleeding hearts" and concern for the common good are held in contempt by Libertarians.
I'd argue that the faction we've come to call "Progressive" in this country carries that older, Puritan sensus communis more vigorously than do political conservatives. Contemporary Liberals and Progressives might have attitudes that emphasize personal rights and personal freedom in a way that undermines traditional mores, but unlike right-wing Libertarians, they have a much more robust feel for the common good. And the unfettered free market dynamics celebrated by the political right in this country have done more to destroy the American sensus communis than the secular mindset and tolerant attitudes of the cultural left.
Second, the common decency that Deneen describes as a kind pre-reflective adherence to natural law is not something that Liberals are immune from. Liberals tend to be community spirited, decent, and empathic–especially for those who have been dispossessed by the historical forces unleashed by capitalism. And, I think somewhat ironically, Liberals despite their tolerance for traditional social mores deviancy would appear to live lives in equal if not greater conformity to them when compared to cultural conservatives. It's been pointed out, for instance, that divorce rates and marital infidelity are lower in blue states than they are in red states. As we've seen over and over again especially with conservative politicians, the failure to adhere to traditional sexual mores seems directly proportionate to one's vociferous commitment to them. While Liberals are more likely to tolerate sexual indiscretions in their neighbors and politicians, they are no more likely to commit them. In other words, that natural decency that derives from the natural law Deneen celebrates explains Liberal behavior as much as it does Conservative.
Third, It follows then that the breakdown of traditional mores does not correlate with the breakdown of basic human decency. I'd argue that basic human decency, whatever its relationship to natural law, is innate, and if anything prospers equally among cosmopolitan progressives as it does Main Street conservatives. And I think that the burden of proof lies on conservatives to prove that culturally Liberal attitudes are the causes of the ills that Deneen lists in that last paragraph. I'd argue that those ills derive more from the policies and attitudes of people who compose the political Right.
Fourth, Deneen argues that secular Liberals are living off the capital of the "first voice" which derives from the religious communalism of the New England Puritans, an inheritance they deplete without replenishing. I understand the argument, and think there's some truth in it, but the biggest problem is that evangelical Christianity, which has always been a driving force in American communal progressivism, has been captured by the Political Right since the 70s and 80s. Evangelicals have, in my opinion, been hoodwinked into thinking that the political Right represents their interests because of its traditional-mores rhetoric, and, let's face it, the political Right's rhetoric that appeals to lingering nativism and racism.
I would argue (and have argued in my "Whig" posts) that this progressive communal strain in the American soul has been carried by the Whigs and Republicans in the 19th Century and the Democrats in the 20th, but has no political representation at this time. The Dems still use progressive communal rhetoric, but their souls have been bought by the corporations, and the Puritan/Whiggish/Progressive strain, which has carried what is best in the American soul, has no longer has any robust political representation. I'd probably agree with Deneen that secular Liberalism, on its own, doesn't have the vitality to restore that tradition in our political life, and does require energies that come from its religious communities. But that isn't going to happen so long as cultural conservatives resist adapting to the inevitable forces that are creating a pluralistic, globalizing society. It's possible to be a Christian in such a world; in fact, as I argue in my last post, Christianity provides profound resources that empower people to do so. It's the profound lack of faith among Christians at this time that prevents them from playing a more vigorous leadership role in the culture as the world moves into a future thirsting for such leadership.
Post Script: As I was writing this my son asked me if I had seen this David Foster Wallace commencement address at Kenyon in 2005. It's a good example, I think, of this "decency" that derives from a "disembedded" sensibility. I'm not saying this is the greatest moral statement ever made–I think it just makes the point that moral decency is innate, and it has to be chosen. Community plays a role, but it's not the most important thing.
I'd just rather hang out with a guy like Wallace than someone like William Bennett or George Will–I think Wallace's decency, his virtue, is, in a way, more deeply earned, and its from that decency that something new can be developed that has some interior life and integrity. My point is that our way out of the problems that Deneen rightly calls out American society on lies more on the path taken by Wallace than it does with people like Will or Bennett. It smells real. Bennett and Will just smell bad.
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