Saturday, September 10, 2005
(6:59 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
No more sacrifice
From The New Republic (via Political Theory):Ironically, as historian David Kennedy documents in his book, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, FDR felt "let down" by the American people. In 1943, the president complained that too many Americans were "laboring under the delusion that the time is past when we must make prodigious sacrifices." What would he make of the present era? The circumstances that required mass mobilization during World War II are, of course, not the circumstances the United States confronts today. In Bush's telling, however, the war on terrorism requires something closer to mass demobilization. "Get on board," he urged in the immediate aftermath of September 11. "Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life." As for sacrifice, the president elaborated, "I think the American people are sacrificing now. I think they're waiting in airport lines longer than they've ever had before." Nor, in the ensuing four years, has Bush asked ordinary Americans to sacrifice much of anything else.Sacrifice what -- to what? What is the function of this "sacrifice" in public discourse? Is it just a fancy way of saying "give something up," or are the religious overtones more than just an etymological curiosity? After all, why should we have to sacrifice? Have we sinned against our public life? Do we need to atone for all those times that we didn't vote, that we didn't go to the city council meeting, that we opted not to join a bowling league? Do we need to make a fragrant offering now, to appease... what? The nation itself? "America?" Have we fallen short of the glory of "America," so that we need to offer our bodies as holy and living sacrifices?
Ah, yes -- holiness, as well, or "sanctity." We believe in the "sanctity of human life" around here, here in America. Some people don't, but we do. Yet what a gap exists! All these sacred humans walking around, and none of them being sacrificed! Did we forget that that's what "sacred" means -- ready for sacrifice? As if I need to even ask this: Has America given up on the Enlightenment altogether? Is it even possible to have a public life in the sense that the Founders intended -- not that I worship the Founders, of course, but at least it gives us something to work from -- when everything is couched in these religious terms?
Human life is "sacred." Not that humans have rights and obligations -- no, that's not what we say. That would imply a social order arising out of the collaboration of rational adults. That would imply that we might actually get to pick what "cause," if any, we want to embrace -- and if we just want to have Weimar forever, or the "happy 90s" forever, then that's an acceptable option. We might get to talk about a project, about creating something -- rather than jumping straight to this idea of "sacrifice," almost like we want a "sacrifice" for its own sake, or for the sake of appeasing the hungry gods. If we "sacrifice," then the great god America will bless us. Or look at those who are constantly hoping that this latest catastrophe will be a "wake-up call" -- to what? And who's calling?
This obsession with the negative, with destruction, with giving something up -- it's a poison. It's of a piece with the philosophy of governance that our entire political class has embraced -- cut spending, cut taxes, cut, cut, cut. Then the native goodness of the American people will have a chance to flourish! Then no one will have a moral free pass -- no, change will happen from the bottom up, when people spontaneously, individually move their precious, sacred, personally responsible bodies into the right places. They'll just know, intuitively, what to do -- if only we get rid of this dreadful bureaucracy, this dreadful educational indoctrination, this dreadful civilization.
