"The Bork Prognosis", by J. R. Nyquist (undermined democracy)
Last week the press corps wondered aloud about Vice President Cheney’s secret rendezvous with a ballistic missile submarine off the coast of Florida. Among other signs of impending conflict, they also noted that U.S. and British authorities have warned Australian citizens in Iraq to leave at the first opportunity. The U.S. government seems to be moving toward a final solution of the Iraq problem. This week the U.S. Senate will hold hearings about our military options against Saddam Hussein. There are also rumors about terrorist moves against the Saudi monarchy, as well as a Wall Street Journal article from former DCI James Woolsey about the weakening of the Islamic regime in Iran. From all this it seems that America‘s political will is about to be tested. This leads us to two questions: How strong is the United States and how prepared is the country for what lies ahead?
The United States is the wealthiest and most powerful nation the world has ever seen. Even so, a country that outwardly appears strong and healthy might be inwardly diseased. In fact, a tendency to deny symptoms of internal decay and weakness may be economically obligatory in a market culture where pessimism is viewed as injurious. Under these circumstances, how can we obtain an honest assessment?
Further complicating our inquiry, we find differing ideological perspectives on what is truly harmful to society and what is benign. For example, the radical individualist may see nothing socially fatal in the blossoming of pornography, substance abuse, abortion, illegitimate births or the growing vulgarity of popular culture; the egalitarian, in his turn, may see nothing fatal in the continuing growth of big government, ever-higher taxation and welfare dependency. The traditional conservative, in turn, may find himself alarmed at the damage done by both the radical individualists and the prevailing egalitarians. In terms of national security and “the war on terror,” the country’s strength depends on the moral courage of the people.
Several years ago Judge Robert Bork described the pathological effects of radical individualism and egalitarianism in his book, Slouching Towards Gomorrah. He wrote of the “hollowing out of democracy” and the breakdown of the legitimacy of American institutions. Bork argued that an undue emphasis on liberty and equality, at the expense of duty and hierarchy, has undermined America’s moral order and social cohesion. In his view, radical individualism “has constantly moved away from … constraints on personal liberty imposed by religion, morality, law, family, and community.” The result is licentiousness which leads to “atomization,” a process that breeds narcissistic psychopaths who no longer feel any loyalty to God or country. Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism long ago traced the path of the atomized middle class careerist who evolves from a vacuum cleaner salesman into a Nazi functionary (see also Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem). This relates to the Bork’s fear that today’s atomistic individualism may eventually lead to dictatorship. In fact, Bork argues that today’s federal judiciary is the cutting edge of an emerging bureaucratic despotism whose injustice has already been felt by many. To say that an American despotism is probable, that it is already emerging, is a controversial and counter-intuitive prognosis, to be sure. But it is solidly backed by recent fact and argued from the standpoint of the last 2,500 years of history; and if history can teach us anything, it is that the collapse of the individual’s obligations toward family, God and country leads in time to despotism. T. S. Elliot once wrote, “Liberalism may be a tendency towards something very different from itself….” There is an added twist to this formulation that can be drawn from the French Revolution. Radical individualism often destroys humanizing sentiments replacing them with lip service to the “rights of man.” Egalitarianism, as well, destroys the dignity of rank (low and high), undermining the moral imagination needed to sustain order against the dark tide of anarchism. These points derive from Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, in which he warned against government by lawyers, economists and “barbarous philosophers” with “cold hearts and muddy understandings” who are “destitute of all taste and elegance.”
One does not have to be a monarchist to be impressed by Burke’s argument in favor of “the decent drapery of life.” It may sound perfectly logical to say that “a king is but a man; a queen is but a woman; a woman is but an animal”; yet it is not safe to predicate politics upon such indecencies. The queen in question, Marie Antoinette, was brutally murdered by a decapitation machine along with her husband and children. Four people were dehumanized and exterminated by virtue of a political argument. Burke anticipated this, and he anticipated the general catastrophe that followed. It was only logical that the exterminators soon found themselves decapitated in the resulting “Reign of Terror.” After all, a revolutionary is but a man, and a man is but an animal, etc. In America, today, an unborn child is not a human; it is not even an animal; it is only fetal tissue that can be removed when inconvenient. Here the “decent drapery” has been torn from the infant. Judge Bork argues persuasively that our country is filled to overflowing with people adept at rationalizing ugly behavior in the name of liberty. Obscene and seditious statements are now, it seems, protected speech. Record companies and pop stars grow rich producing songs that celebrate cop killers, misogynists and rapists. “It is possible to argue for censorship,” wrote Bork, “on the ground that in a republican form of government where the people rule, it is crucial that the character of the citizenry not be debased.” According to Bork corrupt citizens will eventually create a corrupt government, that is to say a tyranny.
Edmund Burke correctly predicted that the French Revolution would end in military despotism. Robert Bork asks if democratic government can survive. “Unlike the sudden cataclysm that overtook the French monarchy,” writes Bork, “ours appears to be a slow crisis, a hollowing out of democracy from within, that gives ample warning of the unhappy condition towards which matters tend.”
At the present juncture, with economic and military troubles on the horizon, we ought to keep in mind the socio-political pathologies we have been nursing these past forty years. Deep infirmities are often brought to the surface by sudden crisis. Should conditions worsen in economic terms, the challenge will be to face our errors squarely. Historians and thinkers have noticed that war and economic distress sometimes have a cleansing effect. Through adversity the people rediscover fortitude and courage. This often cancels out the effects of corruption in the equation of national power.
Over a hundred years ago the British social historian, William Lecky, remarked on America’s performance during the Civil War: “Jobbing and corruption and fraud flourished, indeed, abundantly during the war,” wrote Lecky, “but the lines of national greatness and genuine patriotism were far more conspicuous.”
Of course, Judge Bork would say that today’s corruption is not merely political or economic. It goes much deeper than that. The United States has changed from what it once was. We no longer punish criminals in the old way. We no longer insist on community standards. “That there is a decline in self-confidence seems plain,” wrote Bork. “It takes confidence in your values to punish for crime…. It takes assurance to enforce community standards….”
We also need confidence and assurance to oppose Muslim terrorists and aggressive dictators.
In his final chapter Judge Bork asks: “Can America avoid Gomorrah?” No doubt there are many reasons to be pessimistic. Bork recommends a “balanced” individualism, tempered by religion and morality. He describes four “events” that could produce a moral and spiritual regeneration: (1) a religious revival; (2) a revival of public discourse about morality; (3) a cataclysmic war; (4) or a deep economic recession.
Bork dismissed the last two items as “social policies lacking broad public support.” But war and recession are not predicated on public support. They come on their own account, unbidden.
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