A Tale of Two Cultures

The distinction of public and private, household and polis, gives us some ancient tools to think about the relation between economy and politics. 

But what about culture--the realm of words, values, mores, myth, religion, education, art, philosophy, and science? If symbolic behavior is a defining capacity of being human, the products of symbolic expression, i.e. culture, are what organize our human world. Both in private and in public realms.

Take art and religion. There are the household arts, e.g. my meager home carpentry skills, and civic art, e.g. the statues and painting adorning state capitols and art galleries.  In both Rome and other civilizations, there are the household gods which, representing ethnic and tribal traditions, inspired and protected families.  And there are the public gods like Jupiter, Hera, Minerva, Neptune in the founding myths of the Republic, invoked in the public realm. The household religions are the sites of family devotions and mores.  The civic religion, its doctrines, temples, and rituals, comprise the self-understanding, values, and virtues of the community.

The thirteen states which ratified the Constitution of the United States of America recognized a pluralism of cultures in the private realm while working towards a more perfect union in the public realm through universal rights, public education, and democratic republican politics. The Constitution has had to be amended many times in order to achieve the aspirations of a democratic Republic dedicated to ex pluribus unum.

There is no State religion. All natives and newcomers are free to have their own religious opinions or to have no religion at all.  For the household or private realm, all religions, moralities, lifestyles, ethnicities, languages, traditions are permitted.  But in the public realm, there is a civil religion, language, art, morality (civility), custom, and law that all citizens should learn to employ. This is an evolving culture that incorporates new values and modifies old ones through the process of interaction among peoples. 

For example, in Hawaii, men can wear aloha shirts almost everywhere, whether in corporate board rooms or governmental agencies.  But in the legislature and the courts a suit and tie are expected.  In California, nakedness on public beaches and parks (except in certain designated spaces) is forbidden. Almost everywhere, having sexual intercourse, whether heterosexual or homosexual, as long as it is not abusive, is okay in private, but not in public. New citizens, though unrestricted in private, should do well to adopt the prevailing mores, customs, languages, doctrines, attires, and rituals of the public when in public. All residents are under the law unless they judge a law to be unjust, which they break through civil disobedience by accepting the consequences of its enforcement.

Americans accept a secular state that favors no one religion or religion at all.  But sacred places, moments, experiences, and expressions are not confined to the private realm. The civic religion in the public realm the state often supports. This expression of common values is discovered in the founding documents, on historic monuments, and in the speeches of presidents that embrace the equality, liberty, and unity of all citizens though different in tradition, ethnicity, race, and opinion. 

There is a long tradition in political thought from Plato to MLK that extols the role of virtue, e.g. morality and even spirituality, in public life. I like Cicero's expression best: "There is  nothing in which human virtue approaches the divine more closely than in the founding of new publics or the preservation of existing ones." This to me is an expression of the vocation of organizing, leading, and participating in "civic and political associations" (de Tocqueville).

Cicero teaches that virtue is more important than pleasure and that it can only be achieved in the exercise of it. Moreover, civic virtue is the highest of all. It is the “source of piety and religion, of justice, good faith, and equity, of modesty, moderation, and courage.”

The highest of goals is public happiness--enjoyment in the creation and participation of community. This exceeds private happiness or pleasure in attaining wealth and satisfying material needs. Politics is the extension of ethics, the responsibility of and for us all.