Rough Draft Chapter XI - Overall Report

October 3, 1957

# PART II. THE AMERICAN HERITAGE

## CHAPTER XI

### THE AMERICAN CONSENSUS

#### I

Central to every nation's tradition -- fundamental to its very existence as a nation -- is a core of moral beliefs. These are the ultimate values to which a nation subscribes, the limits of conscience it imposes upon itself, the ethical ideals towards which it strives. This moral core is the source of the attitudes which stamp a nation's character, which endow it with the capacity to endure adversity and shape the uses to which good fortune will be put. It determines what is to be a nation's reaction to challenge; and what is perhaps even more important, it identifies for a nation what its challenges -- both threats and opportunities -- are to be.

In ordinary times it is probably best that a nation, like an individual, avoid an excess of anxious self-scrutiny about its beliefs. National action, like individual action, is most effective and most genuinely in character when it arises from a spontaneous reaction to the moment: when the stimulus of an event evokes an unself-conscious response. This does not mean, of course, that action can be safely left to impulse or that a sober weighing of alternatives is not always a useful course. It is the moral and not the rational component

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of action which must be trusted. In the ordinary course of things we cannot stop to probe our national conscience at each juncture of history, but must depend on the national character to run true.

Yet it is wise, now and again, for a nation to take stock of its beliefs, to inquire into their origins, and to ponder their continuing validity. For beliefs, like social institutions, can age -- some weathering the passage of time well; others becoming merely venerable relics or even impediments to further development. A nation without an awareness of its beliefs and their continuing reliability cannot evidence the responsibility by which its behavior is given a moral dimension.

To inquire into the beliefs is to describe the working conscience of a nation, and with a people as pluralistic as ours this is a difficult task. Too often it seeks to reduce the complexity and even the contradictoriness of national habits to a more satisfying but artificially simplistic pattern. Not infrequently it pretends to describe, only in order to preach. But whereas simplifications and preachments may be useful or even necessary, they should not be confused with a genuine moral stock-taking. For the purpose of moral inquiry should be neither self- commendation nor self-deprecation. Its aim is properly that of enlightenment; its purpose is to help a nation gain insight into why it is what it is.

This insight and enlightenment can only come from an examination of the past. Once again to liken a nation to an individual, a national character

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is the result of original genius, parental influence, environmental pressure, life experience, growth. Hence an examination of the past clarifies both present and future by revealing the roots of the beliefs which currently shape behavior, and by lifting national action, both good and bad, above the level of the incidental. A nation's morality, much as its politics or its economics, has a history, and it is only by grasping that history -- by comprehending its continuities and its causes -- that a nation can master the destiny which is otherwise unknowingly thrust upon it.

Thus at the midpoint of our report, we pause to consider the American heritage. Having reviewed some of the salient problems of our national life and posed some of the main challenges and pitfalls of our times, we look backwards and inwards before we turn to our future. It is not in order to praise or blame, but in order to see ourselves in perspective that we now reflect on the moral, the political, the social and economic traditions behind us.

II

What is the American core of moral values? Clearly it rests upon a subscription to a certain relationship between man and man, and man and God; and the terms of this relationship are what we attempt to describe in our deepest and loftiest declarations of moral purpose.

But a formulation of our national morality which was limited to the great moral truths that we hold to be ultimate would not lend itself the purposes of

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our present inquiry. Such a catalogue of moral convictions is necessarily
abstract and generalized; it serves us as a source of final guidance but not
as a handbook of immediate action. For example, merely to state that a pil-
lar of the American faith has been a belief in the dignity of the individual
does not tell us how Americans have in fact treated one another as individuals;
and there is the further danger that in thus catechizing our beliefs we may be
tempted to take the declaration for the deed. Hence we must seek for some
way of describing our moral tradition which will avoid the mere recital of our
virtues, real or imagined, and which will make of our moral heritage not an
empty formula but a part of our tangible existence.

We find such a useful approach to our national morality in the idea of
**consensus** -- meaning by this word not only the basic agreement on funda-
mentals which binds us together, but also the form of that basic agreement
itself. Thus our consensus embraces not alone the values and beliefs which
we hold, but also the habits of thought and action, the tenor of daily life and
business, the structure of the institutions by which these beliefs and values
are translated into social reality. The idea of consensus thus begins with
the core of faith on which all morality is built, but it extends beyond that out
into the flux of daily life. It is as abstract as our dedication to justice and
as real as our system of the courts; as generalized as our democratic faith and
as specific as our party system; as lofty as our religious orientation and as
matter-of-fact as the practice of faith, hope and charity in day-to-day affairs.

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What is the traditional consensus of American society? What beliefs
has it incorporated and in what ways has it manifested itself in our national
life?

Many seek for the philosophical and moral pillars of American life in
the historic documents which accompanied the birth of our republic. Here are
the great and familiar political conceptions of American life, such as the dignity
of man, the pursuit of happiness, liberty and justice for all. These are the
heraldic mottoes of our democracy.

Yet these mottoes, or the ideals which they represent, are only a part
of the American consensus. They have served to inspire and sustain our so-
ciety but they have not sustained themselves. They have been useful in indi-
cating general terminal goals for our society, but much as abstract moral ideals,
they have pointed the main direction rather than the specific road. Hence while
the American consensus necessarily contains and even springs from these his-
toric expressions of our national faith, it must be sought beyond them in two
directions: inward to a germinal source, and outward to their concrete evi-
dences in our national life.

If we search for the germinal source of the ideas contained in our basic
historic documents, we find ourselves retracing a great current of thought
through its Western articulation down to its Eastern and Near Eastern roots.
This current is the Judeo-Christian ethic -- an ethic which is not represented

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by any single system of theology (for there have been many theologies and
philosophies within the current), but by a conviction concerning the nature
of man himself.

That point of view begins with the conception of man as something
more complex than a biophysical entity, more important than a functional
unit of society, more enduring than a transient flicker of life. In religious
terms it is the conception of man as the creature of God -- as a being not
perfect but perfectable, not saintly but sacred. In philosophic, humanistic,
or scientific terms, this essentially religious conception has taken the form
of an admission that one cannot categorize man *just* in terms of a discipline,
a concept, a function, or a statistic: there is a quintessence of man which
can only be comprehended in the totality of his being.

This Judeo-Christian vision of man conceives of life in an awesome
fashion. It simultaneously exalts and humbles man, because he partakes in
God. It makes him the center of all things -- but not the center of himself.
It makes of man the hero of history -- but it warns him that all human history
is tragedy. It urges the supreme virtue of love, but it chastens that love by
emphasizing that the ultimate essence of one man is beyond the touch of
another. And although the Judeo-Christian ethic is predominately one of
mutual help and support, it is also one of self-help and self-support: it en-
visions an internal preserve in man wherein no one may trespass, and there-
fore it sees boundaries across which one man can no longer help another,

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but within which each must help himself. In sum, it enjoins a *respect* for
the individual beyond that engendered solely by his value as a member of
a social body.

This conception of the divinely created individual human being --
of his unique importance and inviolability -- is the granite foundation of
the American consensus. It is the moral bedrock on which our historical
documents and our traditional tenets are grounded. To a far greater extent
than we are commonly aware, it is the source of the political, social, eco-
nomic, or merely everyday attitudes which make up the reality of American
life. This is not to say that a religious tone suffuses our society or that
an explicit religious orientation has always been a dominant influence over
the past. Rather, as we shall see, it calls attention to the buried evidence
of religion in secular life and to the pervasive influence of our spiritual
heritage as a component of our social heritage.

But this is not yet a full description of the American moral tradition.
It locates the germinal moral source in our consensus but it does not yet
describe the equally important manner in which that consensus has been
expressed.

For it is the *form* of our consensus which has been typically and
uniquely American. We are by no means the only people who have based
their fundamental beliefs on the dignity of the human individual -- although

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it is perhaps this cardinal belief which today most sharply differentiates us
from the totalitarian philosophies of communism and fascism. But among
the great community of nations -- Eastern as well as Western -- who also
subscribe to the broad implications, if not the exact tenets, of our faith,
there is still a diversity of ways in which that belief can manifest itself
in action.

The essential characteristics of our own consensus have been three:
its pluralistic expression; its rational appeal; and its responsible mainte-
nance.

The pluralism of our consensus means that there has never been a
single authoritative interpretation of the moral beliefs underlying our so-
ciety. It is in the nature of great moral generalizations -- such as that
which is embodied in the Judeo-Christian view of man -- that they can be
subject to a variety of interpretations in practice, and it has been an in-
trinsic part of the American consensus that this variety of interpretations
be left open and free. Taking for granted a basic unity of view about the
nature of man, the American moral tradition has permitted -- and even en-
couraged -- a diversity of views about how that ultimate value should be
expressed and applied. It has shunned a national "official" philosophy;
and it has avoided the penalizing of dissent from the prevailing philosophy
even when those dissents were critical.

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Thus our pluralistic tradition in America has established the tone of moral discussion within American society as that of a great and free debate about a central idea, rather than as a polemic of conflicting ideas. And this pluralism of moral views, with its implicit assumption of a central core of universal subscription, has powerfully influenced and supported the pluralistic aspects of other areas of our national life. It has provided the philosophical unity which has permitted political division to stop short of distrust; it has reinforced the individualism which our social and economic institutions have fostered. The true meaning of pluralism in American life is thus not its surface heterogeneity. Rather it is the ability of a nation united in essentials to tolerate an extraordinary degree of individual diversity.

The second characteristic of the American traditional consensus has been the manner of its appeal. Like all moral systems has believed in its own validity, but unlike many it has not sought to force this belief on others. Abroad it has been a missionary but not a messianic belief; at home it has willingly run the risk of dissension and even dissolution by limiting its appeal to persuasion rather than to authority. The body of ideas which constitute the American consensus has always been open for the full examination of every science or discipline of knowledge; it has welcomed rather than feared the scrutiny of intelligence. And whereas the

The effect of this tradition of rational appeal has been to inculcate in our working lives a standard of judgment which is essentially pragmatic. Not infrequently legislation and social change which, upon first encounter are attacked as a violation of American moral precepts, become within a few years universally supported, supposing parts of American society. This adaptability is not evidence of a lack of principles in American life. Rather it is an illustration of the pragmatic -- as contrasted with the dogmatic test of principles. The critical judgment is not whether an innovation violates an abstract idea of morality as weak whether it transgresses the practice of the moral consensus itself. Thus, the ultimate court of appeal for change as well as for continuity has been that of the pragmatic judgment of reason, rather than that of the rigid authority of doctrine.

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resulting competition of interpretations and ideas has on occasion strained the content of our beliefs, or forced their re-adaptation to changed circumstances it is part of our consensus to believe that from this process of rational criticism has come a strengthening rather than weakening of our moral fabric.

Foreign observers have often noted, and sometimes cited as evidence of a lack of deep conviction, that the bitterly fought ideas of one generation become the accepted values of the next. Thus the introduction of social security legislation, for instance, originally attacked by some as a violation of American moral precepts has become a universally supported part of American society. Yet no clearer illustration could be adduced of the essentially rational interpretation of the American moral tradition. For the test of social security -- or of any other great innovation -- has not been so much whether it violated a principle of morality as whether it transgressed the practice of the consensus itself. The ultimate court of appeal for change as well as for continuity has thus been that of pragmatic experience to reason, rather than that of rigid authoritarian doctrine.

The third characteristic of our consensus has been its manner of enforcement. Traditionally our consensus has been maintained by the notion of responsibility. In part this has led to a framework of laws -- such as the Bill of Rights -- by which we have sought to bolster and give legal force to certain moral rights which we wished to protect. But equally importantly,

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the notion of responsibility has rested on an internalized adherence to the moral code itself. It is of the nature of our moral beliefs that they extend not only to the larger workings of society where law may exhort its control, but that they penetrate within the interstices of the law to the minute operations of daily life in which our moral code is constantly being tested. Thus our morality has importantly affected the self-direction of American lives.

In the unique *phenomenon* of philanthropy, in the American zest for reform, in the inauguration of our most socially-minded public and private *policies*

-- movements often and even typically inaugurated and led by the most favored members of society, *is* some evidence of the influence of this internalized responsibility which has characterised our moral tradition.

### III

This complex structure of a central agreement about the nature of man, diversely expressed, rationally tested and responsibly maintained, describes the basic framework of the American consensus. This is our moral heritage. Like every system of morality its reality has frequently departed far from its ideal. If the American consensus as we have described it has been the great binding ideal -- and indeed a powerful binding fact -- of the American past, it has by no means been without its flaws.

To paint the American past as in any way more "moral" than the history of many another nation would be as chauvinistic as it would be untrue. When

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we review our background of moral tradition we do so not to establish our
moral superiority, which is no more nor less than that of other men, but to
identify the particular ideas, and the precise forms in which the American
moral tradition has developed.

Certainly that tradition is not without blemish. Our very moral
center itself -- the belief in the sacred inviolability of the human person-
ality -- has lent itself frequently and easily to a sanctimonious lipservice
rather than to a serious observance. Many an American declaration has
begun with a few pious phrases about the importance of the individual and
has then proceeded to ride roughshod over his interests. More than once
the pluralism of our consensus has been threatened by a strain of intole-
rance which has made of honest dissent the sign of subversive disaffection.
The essential reasonableness of our consensus has had to weather attacks
ranging from the crudest flag-waving to the subtlest manipulation of ideas.
And the responsibility by which our consensus seeks to maintain itself has
been subject not only to the lawlessness which has always been one aspect
of American society but also by the tendency to take law into one's own
hands which is an even graver violation of the spirit of our morality.

To deny this obverse side of the American character would be to
claim for the American consensus a degree of subscription which far exceeds
that of reality. As with every moral system the inevitable shortcomings of
human frailty and the counterpressures of vested interests makes of a moral

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tradition a unifying ideal, rather a unitary actuality. Yet it would be idle
to deny that the American consensus has been a powerful -- if not an all-
powerful -- mould for our national character. Even in its very perversion
there is evidence of its pervasiveness: the pious hypocrisy which it has
so often adduced is nonetheless evidence of the conscience it has imposed
upon American action. The moral roots of our consensus has made us, as
a nation, aware -- if sometimes guiltily aware -- of the priority of the in-
dividual. The pluralistic character of our consensus has served to check,
if not always to prevent, the growth of monolithic ideas and of dogmatic
ideologies which permit of no opposition. The rational appeal of our con-
sensus has served to give us a rallying point against the encroachment of
emotional and propagandistic thought; and the inculcation of responsibility
has provided a sobering countercurrent to private and public licence.

Observed perhaps as often in the breech as in practice, rarely shown
overt disrespect but frequently shown covert disregard, our moral tradition
has nonetheless been a visible and identifying thread throughout our histori-
cal development. It has restrained a nation which by virtue of the very
challenges confronting it was given to impetuous activity. It has given a
sense of the finality of life to a nation absorbed in the conquering of
nature and the winning of wealth. It has provided a measure of good social
conduct for a nation which exalted the freedom of the individual often without

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thought to his relations to his fellow men. The American consensus has
been our conscience.

Whether our consensus will continue to serve us well in the future
is a question for which no one can give answer but the American people
themselves. Certainly there are grave and potent forces at large in con-
temporary society which tend to sap its strength. We do not live in an age
which is much given to reflection about the nature of man, and indeed we
are forced by the exigencies of an increasingly interdependent world to think
of "the individual" in new and difficult terms. As the vast submerged masses
of the underdeveloped nations rise to articulate existence, there are that
many more -- and different -- individuals to consider. No nation, America
or any other, has yet succeeded in thinking of all men as equal. Yet no
single moral imperative for the future can be more clearly forecast than the
need to think of all men -- black, brown, yellow, white; industrialized and
unindustrialized; Westernized and non-Westernized -- as sharing a common
existence and as being of a single essence. Whether we shall succeed in
enlarging and reinforcing our consensus to encompass that end is perhaps
crucial to the most important moral task we shall face, and on its outcome may literally
depend the fate of this nation.

In other ways as well the resiliency and strength of our consensus
will be tested in the forthcoming decades. Our pluralism, which rests on
a common universe of discourse, must now survive in a world of sharply

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antagonistic and perhaps irreconcilable philosophies: can we remain an
island of tolerance in a sea of intolerance? Our reliance on rational ap-
peal must contend with the development of the art of emotional manipula-
tion: will we be able to eschew, ~~as~~ and to recognize and resist, the conscious
appeal to unreason? The exercise of responsible internalized morality is
itself called into question, ~~what are we to base our consensus on, amid so
much evidence of personal irresponsibility, of moral and emotional delin-
quency? by the
change
of our
society

There are no facile assurances or glib answers to these most profound
and disturbing questions of our age. Perhaps in the end the answer hinges
on the degree of moral seriousness possessed by the individual men and
women who constitute American society itself. Exhortations and preachments
will surely be of little avail if the inner conviction of morality is lacking.
Examinations of our moral tradition, such as this one, will accomplish little
more than a passing moment of resolve if the matters of which we speak are
not already deeply implanted.

Whether such a moral seriousness is an integral part of the American
nation, whether there is still a passionate adherence, no matter how inarticu-
late or diffuse, to the fundamental propositions about the sacredness of man,
and about the free, rational, and responsible manner of acting in those be-
liefs -- such a matter is not capable of being demonstrated as ~~x~~ statistical

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They must be believed as an article of faith, for without a moral dedication the American journey into the future will have neither consistent purpose, clear destination, nor national dignity.