Citizenship and Civic Life

The American Soul

Lecture notes on

Needleman, Jacob. 2002. The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders. New York: Tarcher/Putnam.

Main Themes

The Idea of America

American Progress, John Gast (1872)

The Need for Myths, Heroes, Reclaiming the Sacred in Public Life

Democracy/Civic Life in America Depends on both Exterior and Interior Processes

The Sins of America

Revising, then Reclaiming American Political Culture

I. The Idea of America

What does Needleman mean by “the idea of America”?

What does America signify in the world?

A transcendent idea

A vision of what humanity is and can become – individually and in community (3)

A new beginning

Other versions of this argument

“a city on a hill”

Matthew 5:14

John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity

Used very effectively by Ronald Reagan in 1984

American exceptionalism as commonly used in American political discourse today

American exceptionalism as used by political scientists, sociologists (Seymour Martin Lipset, here)

Unique historical development

The “first, new nation”

Absence of serfdom, entrenched class system (but what about slavery?)

Less “class consciousness”

Less radical labor movements, less support for socialism

Asks, “if America loses the meaning of its existence and if, in fact, America is now the dominant cultural influence in the world, then what will become of the world?” (5)

“The question of America leads all of us directly into the question of the purpose and destiny of human life itself in this era” (5)

Does this sound chauvinistic to you? Is this a self-inflated version of what America is?

Can Needleman be right, without becoming a legitimation for jingoism? For forcing our “way of life” on others?

How can we not let this “go to our heads”?

What about the people that “hate” America, criticize its excesses, terrorize it, see it as the root of all evil in the world today?

What do they hate?

Materialism, hyper-individualism, narcissism

These are not America’s purpose, promise

“Materialism is a disease of the mind starved for ideas” (6)

America, properly understood

Hinges upon self interest, properly understood

Balancing notion of human freedom and possibility

With equally strong measure of responsibility, introspection

Freedom to be good, one’s best

To develop oneself for the good of others

Need balance between “an inner world of great spiritual vision and power, and an outer world of material realities and constraint” (8)

“equality…as every human being’s right to seek the truth and to be allowed to give his or her light to the common welfare” (8)

“our task is simultaneous inner freedom and full outer engagement” (9)

The Need to Remythologize America

“Ideas communicated through myth…show us a world that is perceived through the vision of wonder, love of truth and the sense of the sacred, the impulse to serve and participate in a greater reality….

[T]he great myths of mankind are representations of cosmic and spiritual ideas, expressed in a way that touches the deeper springs of the mind – the intelligence of the heart” (12)

We have lost our ability to hold the dual nature of the hero in our minds

The hero and human beings’ “two natures”

Demi-gods like Achilles, Perseus, Hercules, Jesus

Think Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods

John Edwards

Meaning of democracy – rooted in a vision of human nature as both fallen and perfectible (9)

What myths can we reclaim, propound?

What heroes from History can we draw upon? What new ones can we create, propound?

Franklin – scientist, reveler; diplomat; statesman; civic architect.

Washington – physicality, bravery, humility, restraint in the use of power.

Madison – an understanding of politics in the nature of man and a search for

a system of rules, conventions, institutions, laws to direct them for the common good.

Jefferson – a search for inner democracy; the need to develop interior life; the challenge of freedom to use one’s talents for the good of all.

Lincoln – pragmatism, compromise AND adherence to values.

Native American traditions – an understanding of humans as interdependent with nature not superior to it; sustainability (how with this affect the next 7 generations); we are part of god/nature not separate from it; duality; good and evil inseparable; justice.

Frederick Douglas – to be human is to be innately free; to stand for freedom/justice; one must discover and assert his/her own humanity (it won’t be given to you.)

Walt Whitman – to be human is to revel in the natural world; romanticism.

CRITICISM OF NEEDLEMAN BOOK – it really is HIStory

NO WOMEN ARE USED TO ENLIVEN THE MYTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LIFE!!!

My suggestions (their qualities):

Sojourner Truth (endurance of pain and humiliation; faith; courage; speaking Truth to power)

Harriet Tubman (courage; selflessness; solidarity)

Jane Addams (compassion; creativity; civic responsibility)

The Interior Dimension of Democracy

See section on Jefferson, Democracy as the Communal Self

“There can be no politics without psychology. And there can be no psychology without metaphysics, without a visions of the real world” (141).

Contemplate this

What is Needleman saying?

Do you agree?

Can you point to examples from political theory that demonstrate this point?

Example from Jefferson’s writings about the design of the American system, fears about “democracy”

“One side…fears most the ignorance of the people; the other, the selfishness of ruler independent of them. Which is right, time and experience will prove” (142)

What does this mean?

In establishing American democracy, what side was Jefferson putting his money on? Whom/what did Jefferson fear more – popular ignorance or elite tyranny and WHY? How does his conception of human nature lead him to advocate for democracy?

Answer: Jefferson believed each person could, through prayer and a deliberate search for self-understanding, realize “self-interest properly understood”

Could limit his own “freedom” to be self-centered and choose to devote himself to the right, to the good, to the common good.

What has “time and experience” proved in US politics? What is the Achilles heel of American democracy, popular ignorance or elite greed?

Re-visioning the American Idea

Are you familiar with the idea of revisionism or revisionist history as a an academic movement or a political enterprise?

See Wiki link above for a brief treatment of each

Is Needleman presenting a “revisionist” interpretation of American political history/culture in either sense?

Would he see it that way?

How has reading this book affected your own understanding of the American political tradition?

Your approach to politics?