Is there no virtue among us?

"Is There No Virtue Among Us?"

For me the year always begins in September. I am among the lucky few for whom the coming of school was something good, something I could understand not because it was easy but because it brought us together to learn about ourselves.

I had fears and trepidations but I thought no matter how challenging or overwhelming it all might seem, this was a place where we could grow understanding. What are our assumptions and from whence do they arise? What is the evidence, from whence and what has not been allowed? What are your reasons? How do you draw your conclusions? What are the implications of your understandings and how will they guide, inform, or fail to inform your actions?

Now I wonder how much of what matters is open for honest discussion. I'm not interested in causing a stir but no matter what our personal preferences may be, we live in perilous times where it is difficult to attempt undisguised conversation. Questions that should be matters of policy, debate, and, yes, compromise to reconcile our genuine differences have devolved to nothing less than existential matters of survival. I wish this were only hyperbole.

There are too many examples to note but a report this morning from the Washington Post tells us that we are deeply, irrevocably broken and divided on a partisan basis over the climate, and how much less the fragilities of this democracy and the relentless culture wars that threaten to ruin the last shards of decency and civil discourse. We seem incapable of sharing even the same facts, much less agree to disagree. And so very few seem committed to learning the skills of argument grounded in good faith and respect for the truth.

Truth has been reduced to performative grifts and silos of misinformation that seem impenetrable to break. You will see plenty of that if you can stomach the Republican "debate" this evening.

I came across a piece of James Madison this morning regarding Judicial Powers of the National Government, dated June 20, 1788. In this complex comment, Madison tells us that our liberty requires consideration of restrictions and principles upon which there is likely to be contrary interpretation. He is particularly keen to point out the distinct role the courts will play in framing the rule of law in a democracy. He frets over jurisdiction and gives countenance to the privilege of jury trial, and above all what he terms the "uniformity of justice."

If we cannot abide the outcomes of equal justice under the law, we will become little more than the mob or will revert to the claims of the powerful autocrats to whom the law does not apply as it does to all. We seem to be on the verge of losing democracy to the autocrats who have duped masses of people to reject democracy itself for a racist populism.

For all of Madison's own many inexcusable faults, he grasps the heart of the matter wholly germane to our current crisis---for what we face as a nation is a crisis and of existential dimensions. Those who cannot accept the results of elections are not likely to accept the rulings of the law either.

Madison asks rhetorically, "Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks--no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea."

So there we have it, the question plainly put: is there, will there be "any virtue in the people"? We have spent very little time in the past few decades teaching how virtue is made much less how to think, read, and write critically with respect for the facts. Madison didn't expect these skills of the people to be well-honed but he did understand that without a real sense of virtue, of knowing the difference between right and wrong and being able to act upon it, that we would not survive in this democratic experiment.  

Whatever next happens in the circus of the media, the court of public opinion, or the legal system, we will certainly fail if this current "wretched situation" finds no solution. I am more than a little worried that a significant percentage of the American people would prefer a morally flawed, proven criminal autocrat than the deliberations of the law and messy workings of this fragile democracy. If we must count on virtue then we will have to make some and not merely count on it.

I think we shall know before too long if there is the slightest hope for this country, or if our flaccid indifference, short attention span, and under developed considerations of virtue will be our end.

I for one am tired of shouting matches with those for whom there is no respect for fact (or even the notion of fact) nor a shard of decency in their hearts. No pointless debate will solve our problems until we are prepared to have the more authentic conversations that invite the difference between right and wrong.