If the 9/11 commission hearings have indicated anything at all, if the reaction to the insurrection in Fallujah is at all indicative of public sentiment, it should be apparent that the nation is divided. Partisan issues often transcend national welfare. The danger we face is that the political climate could lead to stasis or a retreat in the war on terrorism.
Whether Americans will resign themselves to an attenuated war on terrorism and make the requisite sacrifice as was done during the Cold War or will fasten onto a positive vision of the future, will ultimately make all the difference in this conflict.
To suggest that the United States faces new, more fearsome dangers than was ever the case before is to state the obvious. Everyone realizes weapons of mass destruction and the manifold ways in which they can be delivered pose a threat qualitatively different from any in the past.
Whether a high income, low birthrate nation like the United States can tolerate the loss of American soldiers in daily Iraqi battles, remains to be seen. It is already clear that some members of the press corps have adopted the Ted Kennedy position that the war in Iraq is the 21st Century's Vietnam quagmire.
As I see it, what must be guarded against is fatalism--a fear that conditions are out of control and we have neither the will nor means to deal with them. Based on the hearings in Washington, one might well be left with the impression that our counter-intelligence efforts are feeble and bureaucratic in fighting militates against the prophylactic devices the nation expects from its government.
Overcoming this growing fatalism and sustaining national esprit despite the tocsin in the air, is a national imperative. How it can be done isn't easily determined.
Writing in the 1950's, the sociologist Pitirim Sorokin argued, "A fairly uniform symptom of disintegration in any culture is the substitution of quantitative colossalism for a sublime quality, of glittering externality for inner value, of a show for a substance."
Surely the feverish tempo of accelerated change that is part and parcel of contemporary life, tends to diminish adherence to lasting values.
Here, then, is the challenge for a people that have already faced so many dangers: to retain a vision of the nation that upholds its heritage and is capable of defending its present.
The United States holds the key to civilization. Should the nation's willingness to defend itself and its international interest falter, life will never be the same. Americans fight not only for self defense against sanguinic and shadowy foes, they fight for the foundations of western civilization in Scripture, literature, traditions, and morality.
Our test at the moment is a test of will. There is little doubt that the ordeal we face--the bloodshed and the threats--have already led to catharsis, a national soul searching that resulted in one shining moment after 9/11 in philosophical solidarity, if not political unity.
The eternal lessons of life and death are perpetually forgotten and then recalled. People must live through anguish in order to discover enlightenment. Life is alpha and omega, with the cosmic flow taking microcosmic forms. As a result, world history is a contest in which the strong, the determined and the self assured triumph.
If true, this notion suggests that the United States, as the world's hegemon, cannot be defeated unless its determination wanes. A victory on the battlefield is sometimes preceded by a depletion of will. Hence, overcoming fatalism translates into the maintenance of superior military strength and support for the national characteristics that give determination vitality.
I suspect--since I don't have evidence to substantiate the claim--that the seed of national piety and perhaps the reemergence of a civic religion would be a better way of putting it, is starting to emerge. It springs from a tortured conscience, from the trials of the moment, from spiritual hunger, and from a search for meaning in a world made barren by the depredations in popular culture.
Those who believe that war is unnecessary or cannot solve any problem, are now finding it difficult to turn the other cheek after 3000 of their fellow Americans were killed at the World Trade Center for no other reason except their American heritage. Accommodationists are baffled by an enemy that has only destruction as its goal. Many Americans wonder when the scourge of terrorism will abate and when our armies or God's grace will grant tranquility. They wait in vain, for our enemy is intent on testing our mettle, our essential national fortitude.
One condition necessary to sustain cultural vitality is a national tradition, a common understanding of the nation's founding and history so that the efforts of the past can animate the present. The transmission of tradition does not require a great leader or a single spokesman; it does require history that reveals achievement as much as imperfection. Unfortunately revisionists so dominate the historical profession that mainly mistakes and misdeeds qualify for investigation. This is a tragedy whose effect is already evident in youngsters unfamiliar with the nation's past..
A recent report by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, "The Hollow Core: Failure of the General Education Curriculum," indicates that most college students can graduate without having studied American history or American government.
The unity of America's disparate people is predicated on an idea, a collective consciousness and a common destiny. A sense of the past is a source of all future collective action. To instill this sense requires an exalted leap that goes beyond the personal and the present. It requires of vision of what ought to be. This vision I should hastily note is not one devoted to material conditions. History has demonstrated repeatedly that rich nations may produce indulgences that can enervate the soul and sap the spirit. It is wise to recall that the external trappings of power have typically failed to save many empires from collapse, however impressive they may have seemed in their time.
The United States must guard against such indulgences and simultaneously instill a knowledge of respect for its past glory and unique accomplishments. This nation cannot allow itself to be deflated from without or weakened from within. Nations survive for many reasons, not the least of which is civic pride--a belief that the idea behind the nation is worth defending, and if events call for it, sacrificing one's life. Nations remain strong so long as their citizens can utter with pride the words, "I believe." These words serve as a bulwark against the understandable impulse to seek safety, insulation from the horrors on the world stage.
America as an inspired idea--notwithstanding her many detractors across the globe--is sufficient reasons for overcoming fatalism. But in the midst of mangled and burned bodies and blood on the streets of Fallujah and elsewhere, idealism seems a faraway impulse.
Yet it is precisely in the moment of despair that reminders of the past should be evoked. The words "I believe" are the armor against the day's horrible headlines. They are words forged into the national psyche. But they are also easily forgotten unless passed on from one generation to the next.
In the middle of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln was disconsolate. Seeking solace from despair, the president turned to his minister who suggested the words in the Bible might be comforting. Lincoln proceeded to read the Bible and there in the Book of Proverbs he found words that were indeed helpful in overcoming depression: "When there is no vision, a people perish."
Those words are as true now as they were then. They give comfort now as they did then. And they offer a challenge. We must seek to reclaim our vision as a nation and understand what we must defend and why we must do so now. To do any less is to lose all we value.
Herbert London is president of the Hudson Institute and John M. Olin Professor of Humanities, and author of the recently published book "Decade of Denial," from Lexington Books. He can be reached through www.benadorassociates.com
Printer-friendly version
Email this item to a friend