Depression: Making Culture the Source of Politics

Two major beliefs and behaviors cause our Great American Depression.  One is making politics a means to economy: subordinating politics to the private realm that satisfies the needs of life. Or, in other words, making wealth the purpose of politics. The other is understanding and acting as though politics is rooted in culture, e.g. ethnicity, language, art, and religion. Or, in other words, making culture the source of the Public.

I hasten to add that I’m not saying that economic concerns and cultural meanings are unimportant to politics. There is a political economy; and there is a culture of politics as we will describe. The fallacy is making culture and economy the efficient and final causes of politics. Politics, I will try to demonstrate is rooted in human nature and existence and is an end unto itself--at least the politics of a democratic Republic which I affirm is the purest form of politics and which we have not yet seen in history except in rare glimpses. 

Let me start with the relation of politics and culture. Thomas Jefferson is arguably the key architect of the American Republic and even the Republics of France and many more from Haiti to Vietnam. He was well read and practiced in the philosophies of the ancient Greek and Roman Republics and of Rousseau, Montesquieu and Locke, and in the growing tradition of English Common Law.  The Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights are prevalent with his Enlightenment ideas of science and the natural human right to assemble, speak, and act in concert. And he linked the essence of politics, i.e. the power of people in free assembly, with the freedom of culture and especially religion. 

Jefferson studied the history of the Holy Roman Empire in which the Bishop of Rome was the legitimizer for rulers of states. As the head of Christendom, the Pope declared war on the Islamic Empire and convened the Catholic bishops and princes to oppose the Protestant Reformation. Jefferson was familiar the religious wars in Europe that lasted over a century. He knew first hand of the monarch as head of the Church of England which led to instability in Britain and also to flight of dissenters to the American colonies.

He wrote the statute on freedom of religion for the Virginia Congress and argued its indispensability to the American democratic Republic.  It is clear in his speeches and in his letters to John Adams that he meant not only freedom for religion but also, and more importantly, freedom from religion. His studies of history convinced him that states that had a religious test for citizenship or a religion established by the rulers were necessarily authoritarian and monarchical. Freedom for and from any particular religious or other belief is the principle of a democracy in contrast to autocracy. 

Religion, language, ethnic origin, and race are not determinants for drawing the boundaries of a democratic Republic. In a democratic Republic there is no official religion.  Citizens are free to choose their religion or no religion at all. Cultural expressions and beliefs are not the foundations of a democratic Republic although that Republic is the guarantor of their freedom. 

There are those, even today, who say that America is a Christian country founded on Christian principles and institutions. They are simply wrong.  More importantly, they are anti-democratic. This is not to say that belief systems, including religions, are irrelevant to the nation and have no influence, positive and negative. The beliefs of citizens which arise from their many traditions and education, no matter how diverse, can be tolerated in a democratic society as long as they do not claim supremacy over other beliefs or hinder the free exercise of expression and behavior.

Recently there is question concerning the politics of identity. In a democracy, diverse cultural identities are acknowledged. The principles of democracy are violated when persons are excluded or demoted because of their cultural identity, traditions, origin, race, language, or religion. A democratic Republic requires cultural freedom, that is, free religious, artistic, journalistic, scientific, philosophic, and educational expression and institutions. The politics of identity is of great significance if it fosters inclusion but to be opposed if it fosters exclusion.

Jefferson acted against the institutions of slavery because it was anti-democratic. However, the founding Constitutional Convention, while attempting to limit mass populism when it disrespected the civil liberty of any person, compromised the democratic principle and the rights of man by accepting slavery. Though the formal institutions of slavery have been abolished by law after a bloody Civil War, the institutions of racism and other forms of bigotry have not yet been eliminated and prevent America from becoming a complete democracy up to this day. Even fifty years after Martin Luther King and the Kerner Commission Report on the two Americas and a century after women's suffrage, the United States remains a democracy in aspiration rather than fact.

Humor, which makes fun of our foibles within our own traditions can be an endearing acceptance of our diversity. Who does not enjoy a good Polish, Irish, Italian, or Catholic-Protestant-Jew joke? But not if it impairs the dignity of persons and their cultures or violates free cultural expressions and institutions. In political discourse today, there is much banter regarding "political correctness." In a democratic Republic, it is politically correct to include and tolerate diversity in language, attitude, and behavior.  Such political correctness is the very definition of civility and should be defended. Those who violate it are attacking our democracy. 

Cultural expression can support democratic politics, but it is not the source or definition of politics. This is why we maintain a distinction and even separation of the institutions of culture (e.g. the free church, the free press, the free theater, the free university) and the institutions of politics (the government and the state).  Cultural and political institutions help and inform, but not dictate to or dominate, one another in the free and open society of a democratic Republic.