Founding. Rare and Rational. A conscious, deliberate act of creating a system of government that benefits the people.

Transcription

1 Running Themes Universality vs. cultural relativism National exceptionalism National expectationalism The Social Contract in medias res... in the middle of things

2 Founding Rare and Rational A conscious, deliberate act of creating a system of government that benefits the people.

3 Conditions needed for a founding Opportunity: a new start, sovereign loses or relinquishes control People who know something about government Cooperation A sense of importance and responsibility Founder s toolbox: structure, participation, law, tradition, moral sense, mythology, leadership (City on a Hill, pp )

4 What questions do founders need to ask?

5 Questions for the Ages How to resolve dilemma between tyranny and anarchy? What are human beings really like? What is the true nature of freedom... individual liberty v. social order? What forms of government are helpful? Destructive? When and how should humans come together as political society?

6 Human Predicament COMPETING GROUPS REVOLUTION

7 Libyan revolution

8 Political Legitimacy Guardianships: Divine right

9 Political Legitimacy Guardianships: Divine right Theocracy Philosopher king and guardians

10 Guardianship Rulership entrusted to a minority of persons who are specially qualified to govern by reason of their superior knowledge and virtue - Robert Dahl

11 Political legitimacy Guardianship: Divine right Theocracy Philosopher king and guardians Constitutional or republican Democracy

12 Freedom

13 Kinds of Freedom Do what I want: no rules Make my own choices within a structure Spouse Religion Education and occupation Choose leaders Greeks: taking part in the political process and observing society s rules

14 Freedom in Athens: Having a stake in the political process required the individual to be in charge of his own life. Only free and autonomous men could participate in the free and autonomous society. (Text pp. 5-6)

15 Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters. Edmund Burke, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)

16 Human Nature

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18 Which of the following generally describes your view of human nature? A. People are inherently good but society can change them for the worse. B. People are basically selfish but they can learn to care for others. C. People are inherently neither good nor bad. They are born as a blank slate to be written on by experience. D. People are inherently neither good nor bad (or they are both), but they choose to become good or evil.

19 Human Nature FREEDOM ORDER PHYSICAL GOODS GOODS OF THE SOUL There is something within man which urges him to rise above himself... To live in a higher and more beautiful world.... To be alive only to appetite, pleasure, pride, money-making, and not to goodness and kindness, purity and love, poetry, music, flowers, stars, God and eternal hopes, is to deprive one s self of the real joy of living. David O. McKay POWER

20 Human Aspiration A GOOD SOCIETY A condition of ordered freedom with plentiful goods for body and soul

21 Alternatives of forms of government: Autocracy Classical republicanism Libertarianism Liberalism

22 Autocracy: one or few in charge, guardianships Assumptions about human nature: people are like children; need guidance Forms: monarchies, dictatorships and other despotisms Examples: pre-revolutionary France, Nazi Germany, Stalinist Soviet Union, the current Democratic People s Republic of North Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran

23 Classical Republicanism Assumptions about human nature: people are not necessarily corrupt, but are corruptible. Power corrupts We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. Doctrine and Covenants 121: 39 Hence need design governments to restrain power and encourage moral behavior

24 Libertarianism: just leave us alone, for crying out loud! Assumptions about human nature: people are what they are, some good, some bad, and government is not going to change that. Government is limited to protecting rights; morality is to be left to individuals. That government is best which governs least. Thomas Jefferson

25 Liberalism Assumptions about human nature: people are basically good. They need to be freed from malign influences. Government plays a positive role in addressing social problems that hinder human growth and development. It can address inequality, poverty and intolerance.

26 Political Economy Questions: Can you have free markets without democratic government? Can you have democratic government without free markets?

27 Why American Heritage? The creation of the United States of America is the greatest of all human adventures. No other national story holds such tremendous lessons, for the American people themselves and for the rest of mankind... As we enter the new millennium, we need to retell it, for if we can learn these lessons and build upon them, the whole of humanity will benefit in the new age which is now opening. --Paul Johnson