TRADITIONAL VALUES STRENGTHEN SELF-GOVERNMENT
A few wedding anniversaries ago (this year is our 42nd) my wife Donna gave me the collected works of G.K. Chesterton. Since starting this blog, I find myself frequently returning to this source. Chesterton, the Apostle of Common Sense, can say in a short paragraph what it takes me an entire book to say. For those of you new to G.K. Chesterton, I strongly recommend starting with Professor Benjamin Wiker’s brief explanation of Chesterton’s major work, Orthodoxy, from which the following thoughts are based.
In previous posts, I have made the case we must strengthen our traditional values if we wish to strengthen our self-government skills. Today I wish to address the necessity of us governing ourselves. Next I will address the importance of tradition and thirdly how the doctrine of original sin suits politics with principle.
If we believe common sense and experience are the paths to truth, then self-government makes sense because common sense and experience aren’t the prerogatives of a few. But if we cannot trust our own experience and common sense, then perhaps our Republic must be steered by specially endowed “scientific experts” rather than ordinary people.
I argue we must engage in the activity of self-government for the same reason we must engage in the activity of self-exercise. If someone else does either for us, then we are robbed of any benefit. Someone else governing for us is like someone else doing our pushups. In the same way that physical exercise makes us healthy, the exercise of governing makes us self-governing and less in need of an outside power to rule our unruliness.
Liberals and conservative agree as to the necessity of self-government. We will leave the debate on how to govern for another post.
Mike – just want to second your advocacy for Chesterton and recommend his Father Brown mysteries (complete set at: http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Father-Brown-Mystery/dp/014009766X). Chesterton’s treatment of Father Brown’s character is as excellent as his treatment of real characters (e.g. Aquinas and Francis).
Mike – Many congratulations to you and Donna – ad multos annos, and what a great present! GKC is a fantastic recommendation and I never cease to be amazed at how relevant his ‘Orthodoxy’ is to the situation we find ourselves in today, even though it was first published in 1908. I agree that self, or at least ‘mutual’ government is a worthy goal, but perhaps tradition’s formative influence means that we do need to submit to some sorts of external governance, mutual support, and authority, at least some of the time, to become human beings of character in the fiirst place? Peter
Mike,Happy 42nd. We have you by two years. I am enjoying your blog and the wisdom you are bringing to the page. You have picked some very good people to highlight and shined the light on the path to intelligent engagement. Congratulations.Terry
Terry, Sandy and Peter… each top drawer in your respective fields… lobbyist, lawyer and professor. Thank you for contributing to the conversation on character building. The Father Brown mysteries seems like an excellent anniversary present.Terry’s personal knowledge of the characters in my book demonstrates there is another professional in town who can vouch for ten politicians with principle.Peter, hopefully the notion of submitting to some sort of external governance is an Aristotelean recognition of the family as the primary social unit and not some scary Rousseau like thought of man in nature without government. Just kidding Peter.