From: deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Subject: Re: Nation? Constitution? Where?
Reply-To: deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 23:53:01 GMT

Well folks, I'm simply going to have to drop out of this newsgroup stuff
for awhile - among other things, I have a German language exam coming up in
2 weeks - shudder! Whithering glance and distain to anyone who even THINKS
about sending me an e-mail message in German, by the way. Also, until I can
get this system to work properly w/ my modem, I am at an extreme disadvantage
 - also, I'm simply spending too much time on this, on e-mail, and I've only
been doing this for 1 1/2 weeks - this in addition to my rather large snail
mail correspondence. Hopefully some of the conservatives who I've been talking
to on e-mail who said they were thinking about posting on alt.rev.counter will
do so, and pick up the slack? Don't leave everything on Jim Kalb's shoulders!
And where are those mysterious Integrists? As to the anarchists - our differ-
ences go deeper than mere theorizing, to the point where the same language
comes to have entirely different meaning to each side. It would take some 
time, and patience, to uncover the epistemological source of our disagreement.
Right now I have neither time nor patience. Perhaps Mr. Kalb knows what I am
talking about, and could tackle this issue? (please don't tell me epistemology
is a 50 point word! It may be - unless the writer is an Objectivist, in which
case he should be severely thrashed with a wet noodle!)

Before signing off, I'll comment on Mr. Kalb's last comments. Let me be more
specific about my examples: Rome itself started out as a real, organic people
who were very proud to say "Civis Romanus sum". By the time "Rome" had become
completely abstract and universal, it was simply a system of government and
a set of shared language(s), culture(s) and vague ideals. Eventually, every-
body in the empire became a citizen - precisely at the moment when Roman
citizenship had become a meaningless concept. So the case of Rome is not 
comparable to that of the USSR, which was from the very beginng an "abstract
nation". One can chose to be cynical about the claims about prisoners in the
gulags, but I am reminded of a similar case, early during Hitler's reign,
when prisoners in concentration camps overwhelmingly voted for Hitler in his
national referendum(s), so anxious were they to be part of the greater 
society. I might also note the possibility of ethnic loyalties submerged
underneath appeals to Soviet loyalty. Stalin did just that in WWII, and not
just in the case of ethnic Russians. As to Rome, it is true that it has re-
mained fixed in the imagination of the West, but more so as an influence on
religious thinkers, political theorists, and intellectuals. The actual life
of nations has gone on day-to-day largely untouched by it. I certainly would
not reject such universal ideals out of hand, but I would like to make the 
point that such universalisms tend to erode the foundation of particular
loyalties on which the universal (or at least partially universal) loyalty
is built. As to the USA, I think it tends to fall somewhere between Rome and
the USSR, so on second thought, I would disagree with GK Chesterton, or at
least qualify his statement. Much of what we think of as our American "creed"
derives in fact from the period of the Civil War. The founding fathers thought
of the Constitution as being a bare-bones, utilitarian document which would
establish a limited govt. which would allow the various states to develop
as they wished. There was no "creed": the Declaration of Independence can be
seen as such, but this was legally binding on no one. One cannot perhaps 
speak of an American people at this point, though perhaps of American "peoples
". Perhaps the development of the American nation into a creedal nation was
inevitable, but I do not think that that was what the men who fought for 
American independence had in mind. Certainly the man in the street had no
such notion - he (assuming he was a rebel) simply thought that Americans had
become a distinct people, which should be allowed to rule itself. We do have
a tendency to project our own assumptions back on to the past.

Enough - I'll check in some other time, when sanity has returned to my 
schedule.

David Matthew Deane