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Fourteenth in my series of talks for the Unitarians -
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Whenever I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and
love has always won. There have always been tyrants and murderers, and for a
time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of
it: ALWAYS. About a year ago, I had the opportunity to be in Philadelphia for a couple of days. Like any good tourist, when I’m in a new place for the first time, I try to see whatever inspirational or magnificent places and things they might have there. In the City of Brotherly Love, the obvious place to go is the Independence National Historic Park, downtown. The Park is a collection of old buildings that feel quaint and small by comparison to the modern glass and steel office towers surrounding them. After passing through a screening station much like you would find at a major airport, you are free to walk around through the visitor centers and several of the historic structures. The Liberty Bell is on display in a very modern building, and you can get almost close enough to touch it. It was interesting to see, but an old cracked bell couldn’t really capture my imagination. As I wandered around, I made my way into the west wing of Independence Hall on Chestnut Street, and it was there that I found an original printing of the Declaration of Independence. The display is in a rather dimly lit room with a guard on duty, and the document is encased in a nitrogen atmosphere under glass to help slow the inevitable aging of the paper and fading of the ink. I struggled to read the opening paragraph as best I could in that odd cursive script. Most of you will be familiar with these words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness” I never tire of re-reading this. The main parts of Independence Hall are restricted to guided tours only, with tickets issued for specific times on a first come, first served basis - an appropriately democratic approach. I got my ticket and sat for awhile on a bench near the building, then queued up when my tour-time was finally announced. That tour through Independence Hall was easily the highlight of my trip. It was here that my imagination carried me away. As I stood there in the moderately appointed room where both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were debated, finalized, and ultimately signed, I became lost in wonder at the brilliance, idealism, energy and courage of all those men; Jefferson, Tom Paine, Ben Franklin, John Adams, and all the rest. What masterpieces of hope for humanity they created. When the last of the tour group filed out and our park service guide looked inquiringly at me, I wakened from my reverie and wiped the tears from my cheeks. I walked silently out, the last to leave. When Thomas Jefferson penned those opening words in the Declaration of Independence, he was among a small group of men with a vision shaped by one of the most radical, liberal periods of history the world has ever seen. He and those other revolutionaries were standard bearers of the Enlightenment. (That’s with a capital E.) The Enlightenment The Enlightenment was one of those tumultuous periods of human history that appears to suddenly burst upon the scene when the old ways of doing things are causing too much pain for too many people. For those living through these times, it must have been far less clear whether all the changes would make their lives better or worse. From our perspective 230 years later, it looks as if it all turned out okay. But then, we weren’t the ones having to live through it. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take you back in time. Roots of the Enlightenment (adapted from The Enlightenment, by Paul Brians, Washington State University, at http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/hum_303/enlightenment.html) The roots of the Enlightenment can be traced back to the 13th century, to the monk Thomas Aquinas, who began the rebirth of Aristotelian logic, which had been lost during the dark ages. Aquinas used logic to defend the dogmas of Christianity; and for the next couple of centuries, other thinkers, called Scholastics, carried on with his methods. While logic is a great tool for extending assumptions, it cannot answer the most fundamental philosopher’s question, i.e. “What is Truth?” In the 14th and 15th centuries, a group of thinkers known as the "Humanists" emerged in Italy and France. Far from being anti-religious, almost all of these early humanists were practicing Catholics. They argued that the proper worship of God involved admiration of his creation, particularly that crown of creation called humanity. By celebrating the human race and its capacities, they argued they were worshipping God more appropriately than gloomy priests and monks who harped on original sin and continuously called upon people to confess and humble themselves before the Almighty. Some even had the audacity to claim that humans were like God, created not only in his image, but with a share of his creative power. The painter, the architect, the musician, and the scholar, by exercising their intellectual powers, were fulfilling divine purpose. The goal of these Renaissance humanists was to recapture some of the pride, breadth of spirit, and creativity of the ancient Greeks and Romans - to replicate their achievements and even go beyond them. In the sixteenth century, one of these humanists, Michel de Montaigne, asked a simple question over and over again in his Essays: "What do I know?" Having been powerfully influenced by the discovery of thriving non-Christian cultures in places as far off as Brazil, he argued that morals may be to some degree relative. After all, who were Europeans to insist that Brazilian cannibals who consume dead human flesh instead of wasting it are morally inferior to Europeans who persecuted, oppressed, and killed those of whom they disapproved? It was becoming clear that there were many possible ways of being human, and doubtless new ones could be invented. This new idea of cultural relativism begged the issue: If we cannot be certain that our values are God-given, then what right have we to impose them by force on others. Inquisitors, popes, and kings alike had no business enforcing particular religious or philosophical beliefs. Keep in mind that although these new developments are given a good deal of space in modern history books, for the most part the era was dominated by dogma and fanaticism, and few people were aware that the seeds of change were slowly growing. The 17th century was a time of witch-hunts and wars of religion and imperial conquest. Protestants and Catholics denounced each other as followers of Satan, and people could be imprisoned for attending the wrong church, or for not attending any. Slavery was widely practiced, especially in the colonial plantations of the Western Hemisphere, and its cruelties were frequently defended by leading religious figures. The despotism of monarchs exercising far greater powers than any medieval king was supported by the doctrine of the "divine right of kings," and scripture was quoted to show that revolution was frowned upon by God. Speakers of sedition or blasphemy quickly found themselves imprisoned or executed. Organizations that tried to challenge the twin authorities of church and state were banned. There had been plenty of intolerance and dogma to go around in the Middle Ages, but the emergence of the modern state made tyranny much more efficient and powerful. Perhaps it was inevitable that sooner or later many Europeans would begin to weary of the repression and warfare carried out in the name of absolute truth. Adding to the confusion, Protestant leaders had begun by making powerful critiques of Catholicism, but they quickly turned on one another, producing a bewildering array of churches, each claiming the exclusive path to salvation. It was natural for people bounced from one demanding faith to another to wonder whether any of these churches deserved the authority they claimed. Meanwhile, there were economic forces at work which would provide even more fuel for the coming firestorm. The Political and Economic Background During the late Middle Ages, peasants had begun to move from rural estates to the towns in search of increased freedom and prosperity. As trade and communication improved during the Renaissance, the ordinary town-dwellers began to realize that things need not always go on as they had for centuries. It was not only contact with alien cultures that influenced them, there was the wealth brought back from Asia and the Americas which catapulted a new class of merchants into prominence. With the old aristocracy, land was the source of power. Now that the bond between land and wealth was breaking, it became clear that money alone was also a source of great power. These merchants had their own ideas about the sort of world they wanted to inhabit, and they became major agents of change, in the arts, in government, and in the economy. They were naturally convinced that their earnings were the result of their individual merit and hard work, unlike the inherited wealth of traditional aristocrats. Whereas individualism had been chiefly emphasized in the Renaissance by artists during the Enlightenment, it now became a core value. The ability of individual effort to transform the world became a new dogma. This is the background of the Enlightenment. Europeans were changing, but Europe's institutions weren’t keeping pace. The Church insisted that it was the only source of truth, that all who lived outside its bounds were damned, while it was apparent to any reasonably sophisticated person that most human beings on Earth were not and had never been Christians - yet they had built great and inspiring civilizations. Most important, the middle class - the bourgeoisie - were painfully aware that they were paying taxes to support a fabulously expensive aristocracy which contributed nothing of value to society, and that those useless aristocrats were unwilling to share power with those who actually managed and - to their way of thinking, - created the national wealth. Voltaire and the Aristocrats Since logic alone can be used to defend any sort of absurd notion if it is based on faulty assumptions, Enlightenment thinkers insisted on combining it with something they called "Reason" which consisted of common sense, observation, and their own prejudices in favor of skepticism and freedom. The philosophers who spawned the Enlightenment believed that human reason could be used to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and to build a better world. Forming the vanguard of this new movement, Voltaire and his allies in France struggled to assert the values of freedom and tolerance in a culture where the twin fortresses of monarchy and Church opposed everything they stood for. To oppose the monarchy openly would be fatal, but the Church was an easier target. Protestantism had made religious controversy familiar, so Voltaire sought to undermine the power of the Church by attacking the fundamentals of Christian belief: the divine inspiration of the Bible, the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, and the damnation of unbelievers. Though he may have relished this battle partly for its own sake, he never lost sight of his central goal: the toppling of Church power to increase the freedom available to the people. The Enlightenment in England Meanwhile Great Britain had developed its own Enlightenment, fostered by philosophers like John Locke and David Hume. England had anticipated the rest of Europe by deposing and decapitating its king back in the 17th century. Although the monarchy had eventually been restored, this experience created more openness to change. English Protestantism struggled to express itself in ways that widened the limits of freedom of speech and press. Radical Quakers and Unitarians rejected old dogmas in ways that delighted Voltaire when he found himself exiled there. The Enlightenment in America Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, many of the intellectual leaders of the American colonies were drawn to the Enlightenment. Though several of the colonies were founded by leaders of various dogmatic religious groups, when it became necessary to unite against England, it was apparent that no one of them could prevail over the others, and that the most desirable course was to agree to disagree. It was this realization that inspired the leaders to insist upon the complete separation of church and state. Many of the most influential leaders of the American Revolution - Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, and Paine - were in turn powerfully influenced by English and French Enlightenment thought. The Creator who underwrites the concept of equality in the Declaration of Independence is the same deist God Rousseau worshipped, not that three-part God venerated in the traditional churches which still supported and defended monarchies all over Europe. Jefferson and Franklin both spent a lot of time in France absorbing the influence of the French Enlightenment. Those concepts of natural law, of inherent freedoms, of self-determination which ultimately seeped so deeply into the American grain, and were expounded in the Declaration of Independence – these were the legacy of the Enlightenment. The Constitution After the success of the American Revolution in 1783, the new states took some time for the reality of this new independence to soak in, knowing they needed to better define their common bond, but suspicious of a strong central government. It wasn’t until 1787 that development of the Constitution began in earnest. As fate would have it, Jefferson was abroad serving as ambassador to France, and Adams was doing the same job in Great Britain. Perhaps this is why that most wondrous phrase of Jefferson’s, “the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” didn’t quite make it into the new document that was to become the foundation of government for the new nation. In fact, the Constitution didn’t have much to say about individual rights at all. When the Constitution was presented to the states for ratification, it was found by some to be lacking in those important guarantees of individual liberty that the Declaration of Independence had proposed. Jefferson spoke up again from his post in France in favor of a Bill of Rights, and James Madison and Roger Sherman fought in the fledgling Congress to get it done. The watered down phrasing that finally emerged in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution proclaimed that neither the federal nor the state governments could deprive a person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. This may sound similar to Jefferson’s wording, but the devil is in the details. The “pursuit of happiness” disappeared, to be replaced by “property.” These aren’t exactly the same thing. Even more ominous, all these things were made conditional by the addition of the phrase “without due process of law.” Lawyers and judges are still arguing over just exactly what that really means. The French Revolution I suppose I should mention that just as the Constitution was being finished up in America, the situation across the pond finally reached a boiling point. In July of 1789, a mob of common people stormed the notorious Bastille prison, and the French Revolution was underway. Unfortunately, rather than leading to a new unity as the American Revolution had done, in France the situation went from bad to worse, with rival factions killing one another off. At the height of the Revolution, as many as thirty thousand people were beheaded at the Guillotine or otherwise executed; until Napoleon seized power and ended the Reign of Terror. It would take another 15 years and a good deal of empire-building before the dictator / emperor Napoleon was finally deposed, and political strife would become the norm for the next 150 years before France would stabilize with its Fifth Republic. Revolutions are inherently a very dangerous business. Even with the lofty ideals of the Enlightenment as a guide, one attempt at a new government had ended in a tenuous but growing success and another became a bloody and enduring mess. Back to the Present I didn’t recount the history of the Enlightenment just to bore you. What I hoped to do is to put our current issues and concerns in perspective. The tug of war between liberal and conservative world views is nothing new. Both the American and French Revolutions were grand, liberal, downright radical efforts to sweep away the old and begin the new. Nowadays, we tend to romanticize them into inevitable no-brainer ideas whose time had come. But in both cases, there was plenty of opposition among the citizenry. There will always be those who believe their lot will be improved by change, and those who believe they would be better off clinging to “the good old days.” When problems inevitably surface in a complex society, the liberal solution then as now was predicated upon the assumption that human nature was essentially good, mankind essentially rational, and the purpose of life the "pursuit of earthly happiness." A family modeled on the liberal world view is likely to be led by a nurturing parent who encourages children’s inherent goodness so they will treat others with fairness and equality. By contrast, the conservative solution, then as now, was to respect the past, to work within the existing social structure so that it is modified incrementally, not destroyed. This solution is predicated upon the assumption that human nature is weak, mankind essentially selfish, and the purpose of life the search for social stability and order. A family modeled on the conservative world view is likely to be led by a strict father who protects moral dependents, punishes moral inferiors, and aims to raise independent children to fend for themselves in a very dangerous world. But whether you consider yourself liberal or conservative, you might want to think about this: When a liberal idea finally overcomes the resistance of the conservatives, a funny thing happens. The conservatives adopt the idea as their own and vigorously defend it as part of the proper order of things. If you’ll think about it, you can come up with countless examples. We can save this for the talkback session. Around the time of the American Revolution, a Scottish Enlightenment era scholar named Adam Smith wrote a masterpiece of economic theory called …Wealth of Nations. Among his new ideas about what we now call capitalism, he introduced the theory of the invisible hand, an unseen force that regulates the movement and value of goods and services in a free market economy. The idea is that very individual, in pursuing his or her own good, is led as if by an invisible hand, to achieve the best good for all. This invisible hand can be thought of as a sort of collective intelligence and will of the entire group. Although we’ve since come to learn that the laissez-faire economics Smith advocated must have constraints to limit the greed of unscrupulous players, so far, no other economic system in the history of the world has produced as high an average standard of living. I see an invisible hand at work in our social politics as well. There is an ebb and flow of liberal and conservative ideas, just like stocks rising and falling, but the long-term trend is consistent. Some subgroup may gain enough control to temporarily slow, or even reverse the course of progress, but they never endure. The invisible hand of individual freedom, the essential collective core value of all Americans, will eventually sweep all pretenders aside. The constraint that keeps the unscrupulous players in check is the Bill of Rights in our Constitution. And so, when I hear someone ponder whether a narrow victory by those Americans with a conservative world view means that the days of the progressive ideals of the Enlightenment are over, I just smile. Somehow, I don’t think so. Great ideas, once they are unleashed, have a permanence about them that overcomes temporary setbacks. Patience may be required, however. It may be a long four years, but if things go poorly and the pain is felt by enough people, the pendulum will swing the other way. In these 230 plus years since it all began, the nation has survived far more serious challenges many times and each time it has shrugged off every attempt to impose unreasonable constraints on the rights of the individual. Each time the nation has temporarily lost its senses, it has later regained them and reemerged stronger than ever. This is the genius and the legacy left us by that small group of men who birthed a nation while the idealism of the Enlightenment was in full bloom. Thomas Jefferson had it right. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
are still our unalienable rights, and we Americans will not easily give them
up. 11/21/04 |
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Last Update 11/22/04 |