Armed Liberal has proposed a team concept derived from organization theory that he feels ought to guide our allegiances during and after the 2004 election. I suppose I partly agree. In the sense that all of us are governed by the same civil authority (not running stoplights, paying taxes, etc.) I suppose it's fair to say that Kos, myself, Armed Liberal and Noam Chomsky are all "on the same team." Except, of course, for Chomsky who happens to live in Boston where about the most you can expect of a motorist at a stoplight is a "courtesy slowdown." But I'm a little skeptical about just how far this team membership thing can be pushed. What about members of the "German/American Bund?" Were they on our team? And how much allegiance does one owe to a "team," anyway? What does that have to do with patriotism and love of country, really? Do people die for team spirit? More importantly, do they order others to their deaths?
Come to think of it the team analogy doesn't quite capture the idea of a "nation," or the allegiances required to maintain it. I think it's valid to point out that being an "American" isn't a matter of paying taxes or stopping for red lights any more than being French or German or English is a matter of similar authority-related observances. In that sense being on any team will do. And the mere fact that a Frenchman answers to a French authority is tautological, providing no insight into the phenomenon of patriotism. What is it that commands his willing allegiance? Surely it has something to do with being French, or in other words identifying with a common ethnic identity and culture?
So what is it that binds Americans to one another? What is it that makes the Unum out of the Pluribus? What is it that makes us American, even if our family happens to come from France, or Russia, or Lebanon, or Surinam?" More to the point (and this goes right to the heart of where Marc and I largely disagree) why is there a concept such as "un-American," when there's no comparable ethnically-based concept for other "teams." Why is there no such thing as "un-French," or "un-English?" Clearly whatever it is that binds Americans is ultimately not the same as what binds Frenchmen or even Englishmen to one another. Something else is going on here, that transcends the notion of teams. In fact, it transcends the notion of nationality.
What constitutes that common bond between Americans is not a common ethnic identity, but a common set of beliefs or (in a deeper sense) values. It's a "values complex," in fact. Something akin to an ideology. And this values complex has been remarkably consistent, achieving definitive expression during the three most important foundational events in our history: the settlement, the revolution, and the civil war.
The fact that we are bound by common values rather than a common ethnic heritage is a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because anyone can become an American, no matter what ethnicity they happen to have been born with. We "assimilate." But it's a curse in the sense that if that common values complex ever begins to unravel, and we become defined merely by virtue of the authority to whom we happen to pay taxes or who keeps us from running red lights, there's no fallback position to preserve nationhood. There's no American nationality.
And that's why there's such a thing as "being un-American," because being American is not something you can see in the mirror if it happens to slip your mind. To be un-American you have to be American in the first place, while being, at the same time, a values traitor. A Frenchman or an Englishman can't be "un-American," because they never bought into the defining values complex in the first place. Mind you, they may ascribe to the same set of values as do Americans, but it's not their identity. Nor can they be un-French or un-English, even if they happen to be a traitor to France or England, because the condition that the word defines implies taking some active part in the destruction of that set of founding values. And you simply can't violate "Frenchness," in that way. Except, possibly, by expressing admiration for George W. Bush apparently. And even that's probably just regarded as an eccentricity.
But even though Americans are bound by a set of common values, we don't all interpret those values in exactly the same way. Nonetheless there appears to be something pretty close to an absolute range of interpretation that's acceptable as "American," and if you fall outside that range you're probably American in name only. Anyway, there's a good deal of empirical evidence, compiled by Lipset and Ladd for instance, suggesting that the three core American values are: anti-statism, egalitarianism (as equality of opportunity, but not outcome), and religious sectarianism (or the freedom to walk into, and back out of, any religious commitment you like).
Now, in a sense both Moore and Chomsky ascribe to these values (as does Kos, I imagine). Both believe in individual sovereignty, equality and religious choice free from state coercion. But they also believe in values that are both theoretically and practically inconsistent with those founding values, including equality of outcome, and are willing to countenance coercion by the state simply to achieve income and status equivalence. So, because they hold conflicting values they embody a certain tension that, at some point, will demand a choice. And I have no problem with the idea of some ongoing tension between values that are never completely resolved, because there's a natural tension between governance and individual sovereignty, for instance. But when that tension is broken by an allegiance that threatens the coherence of the entire complex, as it has in the case of Chomsky and Moore, causing them (and the people they influence) to act directly against the nexus of values that defines us as a people, they become values traitors. Yes, they're on our team... but they're scoring for the enemy.
But the intent behind Armed Liberal's rather long piece is really the peaceful and effective post-election cooperation between contesting factions. And that is maintained by two dynamics rather than one. The first involves the commonly held set of foundational values we've been discussing: anti-statism, egalitarianism, and sectarianism. The second involves the formation of "cross-cutting alliances" between people and groups based on the practical application of those values. And only where the latter fails does the former sometimes require more than debate and logic.
So, let's take a look at a period in American history where there was broad tension between American and un-American values: the period of the Civil War. Here was a direct confrontation between values related to ethnic identity, and the market freedom to treat other humans on the wrong side of that ethnic divide as chattel (cattle) and egalitarianism. And let's look specifically at that point in the war over those values, that literally defined the transformation from an "American Experiment," to the "American Principle." The formal acknowledgment of that transformation is contained in the Gettysburg Address, but I submit that the practical transformation took place during the election of 1864 that sealed the resolve of Americans not to tolerate a slave-holding culture either within its borders or in close proximity.
The election of 1864 bears a great many similarities to the election of 2004. Although Lee had been defeated at Gettysburg the war had entered an attrition phase, and Lee's strategy, not unlike Al Qaeda's, was to simply outlast the North's will to fight. The Democrats, who had managed to enlist a famous general as a candidate, touting his military bonafides against the less impressive military resume of Lincoln, were engaged in an "end around" that presumed form would trump function. The peace wing of the Democratic Party acquired the term "Copperheads." The term refers both to the attributes of a poisonous snake and to the value that these first anti-war activists placed on the lives and treasure being "wasted" in the Union cause. They were a "penny-wise" bunch of fellows, and proud of it. So when the Whigs derisively called them Copperheads they accepted the term as a compliment.
At the time, significant "mistakes" had been made by the Army of the Potomac under US Grant, mistakes that lead to a crescendo of casualties ultimately attributed to Lincoln's poor leadership. The pattern of battle leading up to The Wilderness Campaign had been for the North's generals to engage Lee and then seek respite in Union territory until setting out for the next engagement. But after the hell of The Wilderness Grant turned south in an attempt to "steal a march" on Lee. Lee managed to ward off each flanking maneuver resulting in a series of extraordinarily ugly and costly battles and a long and equally costly siege. The population of the North grew weary of the whole thing, and the "peace at any cost" wing of the Democratic Party became ascendant.
General George McClellan, the Democratic candidate, was not a Copperhead, although many people assume he was. The anti-war "Copperheads" had acquiesced to his nomination out of desperation, and an all-consuming desire to replace Lincoln, who they frequently mocked as having simian qualities. And with his military credentials McClellan was seen as one of the few men with any chance of defeating Lincoln during wartime. But although McClellan had invented the saddle that was to be used by the US Cavalry until the 20th Century, he was an indecisive leader who had been relieved of command by Lincoln for refusing to take the risk of losing men in an outright conflict with Lee. Although a military man of some personal courage he lacked that moral clarity that could have expected men to go to their deaths for a cause beyond their own survival. And there was little reason to believe that, in spite of what he claimed, he'd have been willing to carry out a war of attrition with increasingly savage casualties on both sides. In all likelihood this was the very reason the Copperheads found him an attractive candidate.
After The Wilderness the two armies met at Spotsylvania, where one of the bloodiest engagements in the Western Hemisphere took place: a "funnel of death" called The Bloody Angle. Between late May and early September of 1864 almost nothing took place to deflate the chances of a McClellan victory at the polls. In fact, at one point the Confederates under Early advanced almost to Washington before being turned back. The Copperheads were jubilant. For all practical purposes Lee's strategy was working, and with the election barely a month away it appeared that there was a decent chance that the Union would either split for good, or that the South would obtain some sort of compromise that allowed it to preserve the institutions of slavery for a time. Although the spirit of the American Principle had been expressed at Gettysburg, it was in considerable doubt until Sherman's victory at Atlanta in September.
It's hard to say what might have happened had Sherman not won the Battle of Atlanta, for the moral clarity of the North had begun to wane. There was, of course, almost no chance of a Southern military victory, but there was a significant chance of a "lapse of concentration and focus" on the part of the North, perhaps yielding a reprieve for slavery and splitting the continent between a southern, tropical, slave-dependent society and a northern industrial society, right into the 20th Century.
So what's the point of recounting this distant mirror? We seek clarity about our team allegiances should John Kerry be elected, and one might almost see him as the reincarnation of George McClellan. There's not much reason to believe McClellan would have commanded a unifying team spirit had he been elected, and every reason to believe that the US would have entered World War I a half-century later as two separate "teams," possibly even on different sides of the conflict. Although there were soldiers from the South fighting on the Fields of Flanders there was also a significant movement in the South that pledged allegiance only to the "stars and bars," and routinely desecrated the "stars and stripes." The question to ask is not what compromises are required to hold this values-defined nation together, but what sort of moral clarity is necessary to keep it safe in extremis, when it isn't so much the physical safety that's at stake, but the values-nexus itself.
Make no mistake, Jefferson Davis was not on "our team." He was a traitor. Even though he had served at one time in the US Congress and as Secretary of War he chose to give his allegiance to a set of un-American values defined by ethnic superiority.
And bear in mind, as well, that at one point in our history some Americans found it absolutely necessary to impose those founding values on other Americans not only "at the point of a gun," but after having killed a hundred thousand or so "Americans" of lesser ideals and allegiance. If there's a consensus in America it can't be unambiguously ascribed to reason alone, or to the maintenance of a "team spirit." And should we forget the price we paid to arrive at that values-consensus it is possible to lose it. There are Americans who have short-sightedly excused totalitarianism in much the way that Americans once excused chattel slavery. And had those un-American arguments won the day a century-and-a-half ago it's hard to imagine what sort of world we'd now be living in. But odds are, it wouldn't be a better world.
Confusion has a cost.
Posted by Demosophist at September 29, 2004 02:43 AM | TrackBack