Rescuing America's Democracy From Its Collapsing Morality

At the time of the founding of America, many people, even several of the Founding Fathers, were very doubtful that a democratic form of government could survive. Such a form had rarely existed and in the few instances where it had, with the exception of a very limited number of extremely small countries, it had collapsed into anarchy. The ordinary people of those democracies lost the ability to control themselves, to see where their rights ended and their neighbors’ rights began. They succumbed to the more powerful, more basic passions of wanting things their way with callous disregard for the rights of others. Invariably this necessitated the emergence of a dictator to restore order. The more chaotic the society, the more brutal the means employed by the dictator to suppress the anarchy.

But there was something extraordinary about America. It was a harsh, untamed frontier that required of its inhabitants cooperation and hard work for survival, but more importantly the early settlers brought with them a radical new view of human nature. Like so many of that era they were driven by the belief that humanity had a destiny to lead a moral life, but unlike most, they proclaimed that the ordinary people, without the aid of ritual or relics or a prince or a priesthood class, could ascertain for themselves the path to a moral life. They asserted that this could be achieved, not only by their own reading and interpreting of the bible, but also by leading a life in which they fully developed their abilities and used those abilities to improve both the spiritual and material welfare of society. This required individuals to work hard, control their passions, and allocate time to helping others. They were an educated, literate, ethical people in a state of personal self-governance and they translated this personal attribute into a society of self-governance, thus making democratic America, against all odds, a resounding success.

But it is this very success and the world’s emulation of it that has caused many, particularly the intellectuals, in modern secular America to view democracy as the natural state of our species, a state to which all societies will eventually, spontaneously progress. Hence, these people disparage America as being nothing extraordinary in human history, just an accident in time that any country given the right physical environment could have accomplished. They spout the belief that the desire to be free to control one’s destiny, that enlightened self-interest, is sufficient to provoke people to make the sacrifices necessary to maintain a democracy. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is pursuit of freedom and self-interest that motivates the tyrant to exterminate all those who oppose him. It is pursuit of freedom and self-interest that motivates the criminal to kill and steal.

For our democracy to survive, a majority of the ordinary people must feel and act upon the belief that was held by the early settlers of America that is that humanity has a more noble purpose than mere self-gratification. They must believe that humankind has a moral destiny to develop their abilities not only for the betterment of the individual, but also, for the alleviation of human misery throughout society. They must accept that this requires not only compassion, but hard work and self-discipline. Although we should recognize that religion has been important in promoting these desirable qualities, America is a secular, pluralistic society that cannot, and should not, return to being principally dependent upon religion to achieve these ends. It needs to buttress the promotion of these qualities through government programs that, not only help the needy, but hold people more accountable to one another and through civic organizations that encourage people to work together for the common good. Lastly, for America’s democracy to survive, we must appreciate how antithetical hard work, self-discipline, and compassion are to the much stronger instincts of pursuit of power and pleasure and because of this how extraordinary and tenuous America’s existence is. In this book, practical policies promoting these objectives in seventeen areas of American life are presented.