I didn't have time to finish writing this post for President's Day. And I did question whether it was appropriate to post a criticism of a president on the day he was being honored, even if he was a lousy president who betrayed the Constitution.
Jerry Salyer has posted some thoughts over at FPR on whether we are too provincial in our understanding of ourselves and our culture: "Is Western Civilization Un-American?". Dr. Fleming has written about the American disdain for belle-lettres in other languages.
For the moment, I wish to look at what divides true Federalists from the Nationalists who have co-opted the Constitution and made their interpretation of it the "original" one. Not surprisingly, the Nationalists exalt Lincoln -- they place him equal in importance to George Washington, for he is the "refounder" of the nation. This greatness is magnified by his tragic assassination (his "matyrdom" for the cause of the Union).
While I was in several classrooms, we read various children's books on Lincoln in preparation for President's Day. Of course, Lincoln was portrayed as a hero and savior of the union, the one who "defended" the United States. (There was some mention in a couple of the books about equality but it was rather muted.) Secular hagiography by adults for children, relying upon an ignorance of the Constitution and the horrors of war. We are not told what measures Lincoln used to keep the Union together. Even if the war were discussed, the blame for the start of the war would undoubtedly be put on the South. After all, American politicians don't maneuver so that they can provoke a war and blame the other side, do they? The complexity of the causes of the war is reduced to the single issue of slavery, and apparently a war is a justified response to an attack on Federal property (albeit a military installation, Ft. Sumter). Is this really the case under just war theory? It doesn't seem like a proportional response. It was just an excuse, and other official reasons were piled on.
Calling the Confederates rebels/traitors presupposes the Nationalist understanding, and is begging the question. A "Neoconfederate" is just an unreconstructed Southron, someone who hasn't been
[There is the ignorant rejoinder by Lincoln partisans citing the secession of West Virginia -- those who defend the right of secession are not being inconsistent, since that right doesn't apply to every level of political organization, but to that which is sovereign, the states. One may not agree with this, but this is how the states understood themselves.]
Some have alleged that "American culture" is Calvinist, not with respect to capitalism (the link between the two is tenuous) but with respect to civic religion. Northern Calvinism, perhaps -- whatever is the source for Yankee culture and it's "do-goodism." The snobbery of the Northeastern elites has also spread everywhere. Christians are accused of supporting forced conversion or hostile proselytization, but Nationalists (being a mixture of liberals and statists) are guilty of this, desiring homogeneity in belief and making others conform to their beliefs through the power of the state. Nationalists and statists, both Democrats and Republicans, uphold the ideology of the proposition nation*, centered on the Declaration of Independence as the list of [liberal] natural law propositions by which everything else is judged. They take it upon themselves to claim to define what it means to be an orthodox American -- anyone who doesn't fall in line, isn't really American or patriotic, etc.
Why can they not just leave people alone? They indoctrinate for the sake of a national culture and identity -- "history is written by the conquerors," indeed. Their identity is founded upon a common history and belief system, and anything that deviates is a threat to that identity. This identity is not organic, though. This is the problem, they presume what they wish to defend, that there is a "national" identity, downplaying the fact that there are regional differences, distinct peoples with their own cultures and histories. But this is their mistake - solidarity is built upon a true community and having an identity as a people, and the United States is too large a territory for anything but a very weak form of solidarity. It may suffice during times of abundance and wealth, but it will be severely tested in long-lasting disaster. Their self-identification is what matters, not what you seek to impose on them a forced solidarity that ignores the human scale and human nature, quite frankly. (Hence the failure of the neoconservative project abroad is related to the same intellectual weakness besetting these "conservatives" at home. Dangerous utopian thinking.)
Who is a conservative? What does he seek to conserve? His people and their identity, and their place.
I would be content to have many different American political traditions, defending one instead of claiming that it is the one authentic tradition, even if it, the Southern [conservative] political tradition, is possibly the one American tradition worth keeping. (Or, more broadly, the various antifederalist traditions.) But I suspect these other conservative bloggers and pundits wouldn't leave me alone, relying upon an illusory strength in numbers and their apparent diffuse influence. [How many members of all the group blogs out there have actually met? What's to test a virtual intentional community?]
Despite what they believe about themselves, Americans in general, and the Nationalists especially, have a degraded sense of republicanism. This seems to have been lost rather early, at least in certain circles.Were the early centralizers outnumbered by true federalists at the Constitutional Convention? Certainly in the state legislatures. But they seem to have prevailed. While there is much at the root of the American founding that needs to be rectified (excessive mobility being a cultural trait that has been harmful to the stability required for communal life), I believe the Southern political tradition can be harmonized with a decent political theology, one that emphasizes subsidiarity and sustainability, and a program of relocalization. Catholics should be seeking to appropriate what is the best/true/good in a culture and if there are competing traditions demanding our submission, we who do not identify with any particular Anglo-American people must be more critical and judge between those traditions. At this point, I am not interested in trying to convert Nationalists. I would prefer that they leave me alone, but if they will not, let us see who can build better bonds with others.
*In that article, PJB probably goes too far in his claim that there is a single (Anglo-)American people.
Updated:
Slate: Everything you know about the Civil War is wrong
Almost. Historian David Goldfield exposes how evangelical Protestants turned a conflict into a bloody conflagration
Meanwhile, the Nationalists are at it again: You May Be a Neo-Confederate If:
More -- Top Ten Civil War Movies For The Fourth of July and Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence
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