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Engaging with American Democracy » Week #2: Rhetoric, the Republic, and Virtue

Week #2: Rhetoric, the Republic, and Virtue

Democracy/Liberty/Freedom/ETC. quotation:

  • “…all constitutions, except the best one of all, are destroyed both by not being pushed far enough and by being pushed too far. Thus, democracy loses its vigour, and finally passes into oligarchy, not only when it is not pushed far enough, but also when it is pushed a great deal too far…” –Aristotle. On Rhetoric. Chapter 4-[1360b, para. 8].

Philosophers to Consider

Today’s reading mentions several philosophers, and I thought it might help giving a little background on them. This isn’t supposed to be exhaustive but introductory.

  • Plato
  • Aristotle
    • I consider him the great organizer setting down rhetorical theory.
    • “Let rhetoric be [defined as] an ability, in each [particular] case, to see the available means of persuasion” (1.2.1, Kennedy p. 37; Part 2, para. 1 Online)
  • Pythagoras
  • Xenophon
    • Famous military leader and student of Socrates
  • Plutarch
    • Important intermediary between Greek and Roman empires as Rome becomes dominant
    • He’s got a Platonic side and a pseudo-Stoic vibe, but is best know for the histories/biographies he wrote.
  • Cicero
    • In Italian, a cicerone is derived from Cicero and means a tour guide, but it can also be pejorative and mean know-it-all.

Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations

This philosophical treatise is prominent for Rosen’s argument on how the Founding Fathers considered “the pursuit of happiness” to be based on virtue. It’s actually five books, and their descriptions are worth considering:

“The first book teaches us how to [treat with contempt] the terrors of death, and to look upon it as a blessing rather than an evil; “The second, to support pain and affliction with a manly fortitude; “The third, to appease all our complaints and uneasinesses under the accidents of life; “The fourth, to moderate all our other passions; “And the fifth explains the sufficiency of virtue to make men happy.” —Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations. Translated by C.D. Yonge, Harper & Brothers, 1877, p. 7.

The book is set up as a series of Socratic points-counterpoints. The goal to life is to be virtuous, and one gets there through moderating oneself and not giving over to passions. Cicero sets readers up to accept in Book V that virtue is key to happiness. Of course, Cicero is a philosopher, and it’s important to know that philosophy means “love of wisdom” (philo meaning “love”; sophy meaning “wisdom”). The ability to head out of town to a villa to engross oneself in philosophical study is reserved for the elite, and Marcus Tullius Cicero was an elite Roman.

Cicero is generally lumped in with the school of Stoicism, which has been getting more popular attention recently. Broadly, stoics believe in order, specifically, a rational order to the universe that creates equilibrium, balance, and harmony. Consider the contemporary rise of interest in the following:

  • Self-help movement
  • Self-discipline routines
  • Road Rage
  • Sulprizio, Chiara. “Why is Stoicism Having a Cultural Moment?” Medium.com. 17 August 2015.
    • para. 5: “Ancient Stoics were all about living in the moment, a goal achieved by cultivating self-control and self-awareness through meditative practices.”
    • “They ‘thought about thinking’ by considering their emotions from a rational perspective, reflecting on the ethics of their decisions, and constantly reminding themselves that while they had no power over what happened in life, they did have power over their responses to it.”
      • “Think about thinking” or metacognition is necessary to advance intellectually.

Questions to Ponder

  • Why would the Founding Fathers have an affinity for this philosophical school?
  • What is the role of education in this early American “bro culture”?
  • Why does moderation seem to be valued, and where else does this arise in American culture?

Jeffrey Rosen’s Ch. 1: “Order: Twelve Virtues and the Pursuit of Happiness”

Rosen’s entire book examines the philosophical influences on the key founding fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams. Although I didn’t assign the entire book, this introductory chapter offers great insight into the intellectual influences of the founders, including their obsession with living the good life (check out Tony Bennett’s lyrics).

  • p. 2: “[Benjamin] Franklin’s conclusion was that ‘without Virtue Man can have no Happiness in this World.'”
    • Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations: O philosophy, guide of life! O searcher out of virtue and exterminator of vice! One day spent well and in accordance with thy precepts is worth an immortality of sin.” —Book 5, II, p. 164
  • p. 3: Jefferson’s advice to Amos J. Cook
    • “[I]f the Wise, be the happy man, as these sages say, he must be virtuous too; for without virtue, happiness cannot be.”
    • A different translation of the long quote on Rosen’s p. 3: “Whoever, then, through moderation and constancy, is at rest in his mind, and in calm possession of himself, so as neither to pine with care, nor be dejected with fear, nor to be inflamed with desire, coveting something greedily, nor relaxed by extravagant mirth—such a man is that identical wise man whom we are inquiring for: he is the happy man, to whom nothing in this life seems intolerable enough to depress him; nothing exquisite enough to transport him unduly.” —Book 4, XVII, p. 142
    • Neither depression nor elevated excitement
    • The Founders wouldn’t approve of Las Vegas…but would they go?
  • pp. 3-4: “Jefferson said that the Declaration “was intended to be an expression of the American mind, resting on the harmonising sentiments of the day…”
  • p. 5: Rosen explains that the answers he personally wanted were “to the question of whether spiritual and moral truth could be obtained by reason rather than revelation by good works and reflection rather than blind faith….precisely the question the ancient philosophers had set out to answer.”
    • By reason and reflection–requiring the individual to make a concerted effort.
    • These philosophers mainly believed in absolute truth and strict order to the U/universe.
    • Aristotle’s syllogisms were deductive logic leading to truth (as long as you have valid premises). *Major Premise (assumed by audience) *Minor Premise (assumed by audience–either the Major Premise or Minor Premise is assumed) Therefore, a likely conclusion or a probable conclusion.
    • Example: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
  • p. 6: The pursuit of happiness to the ancients wasn’t “pursuit of pleasure” but “the pursuit of virtue–as being good, rather than feeling good.”
    • “…the classical definition of the pursuit of happiness meant being a lifelong learner, with a commitment to practicing the daily habits that lead to character improvement, self-mastery, flourishing, and growth…happiness is always…to be pursued rather than obtained–a quest rather than a destination.”
    • Life’s a journey / Not a destination —Aerosmith. “Amazing.” Get a Grip. UMG Recordings, 1994.
  • pp. 6-7: Stoics tell us to “focus on controlling the only things that we have power to control: namely, our own thoughts, desires, emotions, and actions.”
  • p. 7: Live in harmony.
    • “Aristotle famously defined happiness as virtue itself, an ‘activity of soul in conformity with excellence.'”
  • p. 8: “What Cicero and Franklin called ‘virtue,’ therefore, might be translated as “good character.”
    • perhaps, ethos
  • p. 9: “…the goal of education was to strengthen the intellect, or reason, so that it could moderate and control the will and the emotions in order to achieve the self-control that was key to happiness.”
  • p. 10: “Franklin concluded that we need to use our powers of reason to check our immediate emotions and desires so that we can achieve the harmony of the soul that allows us to flourish, emphasizing that ‘all true happiness, as all that is truly, beautiful, can only result from order.'”
    • “impulse control”
    • “delaying short-term gratification for long-term character improvement, Franklin was summarizing the essence of the ancient wisdom.”
    • The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment
  • p. 11: John Locke on Cicero:
    • “we should control our desires through calm deliberation so that we come to realize that our true and substantial happiness will best be served by long-term self-regulation rather than short-term gratification.”
  • p. 11: Rosen believes American culture moved from privileging “being good to feeling good” in the 1960s
    • The myth of the universal assumption of 1960s “hippie” conformity
  • p. 12: “The Founders talked incessantly about their struggles for self-improvement and their efforts to regulate their anxieties, emotions, and perturbations of the mind. They tried to calm their anxieties through the daily practice of the habits of mindfulness and time management. Aristotle said that good character comes from the cultivation of habits…”
    • Where have you heard comments on these?
      • Time management
      • Moderation
      • Planning for the future
  • Of course, Rosen identifies a pretty stark contradiction in the Founders support of slavery
    • “Jefferson and other enslavers from Virginia recognized that it was craven greed…that kept them from freeing those they held in bondage, even as they called for the ‘total emancipation’ of all enslaved people in the future.”
    • “…they were too dependent on the lifestyle slavery afforded them to consider the consequences of giving it up.”
    • Thomas Jefferson had lots of debt and needed to sell property to pay off his creditors. He even sold his library, which became the basis for the Library of Congress.
  • p. 13: “…the Founders believed that personal self-government was necessary for political self-government. In their view, the key to a healthy republic begins with how we address our own flaws and commit to becoming better citizens over time.”
    • “…the Constitution was designed to foster deliberation so that citizens could avoid retreating into the angry mobs and partisan factions that can be inflamed by demagogues.”
  • p. 14: “Madison would have urged us to think more and tweet less.”
    • “…not as boundless liberty to do whatever feels good in the moment but as bounded liberty to make wise choices that will help us best develop our capacities and talents over the course of our lives.”
    • “…the pursuit of happiness includes responsibilities as well as rights–the responsibility to limit ourselves, restrain ourselves, and master ourselves, so that we achieve the wisdom and harmony that are necessary for true freedom.”
  • pp. 14-15: “This was the classical understanding of the pursuit of happiness: the freedom to make daily choices about how to balance emotion and reason that lead to truth, order, harmony, and wisdom, aligned with the divine will or the natural harmonies of the universe.”
  • p. 15: “that moderating emotions is the secret of tranquility of mind; that tranquility of mind is the secret of happiness; that daily habits are the secret of self-improvement; and that personal self-government is the secret of political self-government.”

Justice Louis Brandeis on Freedom of Speech

The last chapter of Rosen’s book begins with a famous quote from Justice Louis Brandeis’s opinion in Whitney v. California (1927) on freedom of speech, which was inspired by Brandeis’s reading of Thomas Jefferson (p. 263-264). I’ll quote the selection at length, and, time permitting, we’ll analyze this as a way to lead us into next class’s discussion on the Bill of Rights:

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that, in its government, the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end, and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness, and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that, without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile; that, with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. [Footnote 2–links to Jefferson’s arguments on free speech] They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies, and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law — the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed. Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. To justify suppression of free speech, there must be reasonable ground to fear that serious evil will result if free speech is practiced. —Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

August 27th: Economics and Virtue

  • Democracy/Liberty/Freedom/ETC. quotations: “The great democracies recognize that political and economic freedom are indivisible; policies that threaten one of these freedoms inevitably undermine the other.” –Reagan, Ronald W. “Letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate Transmitting the Annual Economic Report of the President.” 10 Jan 1989
  • “According to this liberal and generous system, therefore, the most advantageous method in which a landed nation can raise up artificers, manufacturers and merchants of its own, is to grant the most perfect freedom of trade to the artificers, manufacturers, and merchants of all other nations.” –Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations. 1776. Edited by Edwin Cannan. The Modern Library, 1937, p. 636.

Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States (1829-1837)

  • Born in the Waxhaw Settlement between North and South Carolina
  • Distinguished military career
  • Democratic Party that exists today
  • Not Regionally bound, expansionist, and opposed to a National Bank
  • Whigs
  • Opposed Jackson’s party
  • Not Regionally bound
  • Supported a National Bank and commerce

Sandel Narrates the Rival Positions based on Economics

  • p. 47: Democrats led by Jackson objected that such policies would enrich the powerful at the expense of the common man and lead to an unjust distribution of wealth. In a pattern of argument familiar in our time…
  • Whigs replied that economic growth would benefit farmers and laborers as well as businessmen and bankers, that a rising tide would lift all boats.”
  • p. 48: Whigs on wealth redistribution
  • Congressman Edward Everett “Such a distribution would have been another name for annihilation.…how many families would have been reduced to want, and without any advantage resulting from the distribution?”
  • p. 49: Jacksonian Democratic Review—“A strong and active democratic government, in the common sense of the term, is an evil, differing only in degree and mode of operation, and not in nature, from a strong despotism. . . . Government should have as little as possible to do with the general business and interests of the people. . . . Its domestic action should be confined to the administration of justice…”
  • p. 50: Jacksonian Democrats believed government intervention would benefit the rich at the expense of justice.
    • Jackson “the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. . . . If [government] would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing.”
  • pp. 50-51: “the threat to self-government posed by large concentrations of wealth and power.”
  • p. 51: “Underlying the debates between Democrats and Whigs were competing visions of a political economy of citizenship.”
    • “Jackson’s policies and rhetoric reflected republican hopes and fears in two respects.

      First, his stand against the Bank of the United States, and against federal support for commerce and industry, reflected the traditional republican fear that powerful, self-interested forces would dominate government, secure special privileges, and deprive the people of their right to rule.

      Second, his hostility to large-scale business, banking, and speculation sprang from the conviction that only industrious producers such as farmers, mechanics, and laborers possessed the virtue and independence necessary to self-government.”

      • “…the spirit of speculation those institutions [paper currency and a national bank] encouraged would corrupt republican government indirectly, by undermining the moral qualities republican citizenship requires”
      • p. 52: Jackson believed this “monopoly…was to concentrate the whole moneyed power of the Union, with its boundless means of corruption and its numerous dependents, under the direction and command of one acknowledged head . . . enabling it to bring forward upon any occasion its entire and undivided strength to support or defeat any measure of the Government.”
      • “The fluctuations of paper currency “engender a spirit of speculation injurious to the habits and character of the people.”
      They saw this as a vice like gambling.
  • p. 53: “…threatened to pervade all classes of society and to withdraw their attention from the sober pursuits of honest industry. It is not by encouraging this spirit that we shall best preserve public virtue.” Paper money fostered an “eager desire to amass wealth without labor” that would “inevitably lead to corruption” and destroy republican government.”
  • p. 54: “…the virtue-sustaining occupations that suited Americans to self-government. ‘The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer all know that their success depends upon their own industry and economy, and that they must not expect to become suddenly rich by the fruits of their toil.’”
  • pp. 54-55: “Government would promote virtue not directly, through legislation, but indirectly, by holding off the economic forces that threatened to undermine it.”

political economy: branch of social science that studies the relationships between individuals and society and between markets and the state, using a diverse set of tools and methods drawn largely from economics, political science, and sociology. (Britannica)

Whigs and Jacksonians Agreed…

  • p. 55: “…Whigs…advanced a political economy of citizenship and attended to the moral consequences of economic arrangements.”
  • “Jacksonians and Whigs shared the republican notions that centralized power is the enemy of liberty and that government should concern itself with the moral character of its citizens.”
  • However…
    “While Jacksonians feared centralized economic power, the Whigs feared centralized executive power. As Whigs saw it, the threat that power posed to liberty was not to be found in the forces of industry, banking, and commerce, but instead in Jackson’s conception of the presidency.”
  • p. 56: “[Henry] Clay and the American Whigs saw the greatest threat to republican government in the abuse of executive power.”
    • Whigs had an “enthusiasm for commerce, industry, and economic development.”
    • “The classical republican tradition had seen commerce as antithetical to virtue, a source of luxury and corruption that distracted citizens from the public good.”
    • Even Thomas Jefferson felt that an agrarian economy was better suited to morality. “…American republicans had worried about the civic consequences of large-scale commercial and manufacturing enterprises.”
  • p. 57: “[Whigs] accepted the republican assumptions that self-government requires certain moral and civic qualities among citizens, and that economic arrangements should be assessed for their tendency to promote those qualities.”
    • The Whigs’ formative project:
      1) “to deepen the bonds of union and cultivate a shared national identity”
      2) “to elevate the morality of the people, to strengthen their respect for order and their capacity for self-control.”
    • Whigs wanted to increase American manufacturing and slow Westward expansion.
    • “Whigs sought to realize these aims through a policy of national economic development and through various public institutions, from schools to reformatories to asylums, designed to improve the moral character of the people.”
  • National Integration
  • p. 57: “And a national bank would ease tax collection, commercial transactions, and public spending by establishing a strong currency.”
  • p. 58: “…economic development…national integration.”
    • “National transportation and communication facilities would promote national harmony as well as commerce and morally uplift remote regions of the country. A railroad from New England to Georgia would ‘harmonize the feelings of the whole country.’”
    • “Given their ambition to deepen the bonds of union, Whigs lacked the Jacksonian appetite for territorial expansion.”
  • p. 59: Whigs believed the Republic needed commonality and expansion would thwart that.
    • “…a republic cannot extend across an unlimited space.”
    • Whigs wanted to increase American manufacturing and slow Westward expansion.
    • “Whigs pursued their formative aims through a range of public institutions and benevolent societies designed to build character and inculcate self-control. These efforts included insane asylums, penitentiaries, almshouses, juvenile reformatories, Sunday schools, the temperance movement, and factory communities such as the one at Lowell.”
    • “…reflected the religious impulses of evangelical Protestantism and the reformist, paternalist aspect of Whig political thought.”
  • p. 60: “Whigs…worried about the social changes, such as the decline of deference, the rise of immigration, and the general breakdown of the moral order of small-town, rural life.”
    • “Of all the Whig projects of moral and civic improvement, their most ambitious instrument of republican soulcraft was the public school.”
    • “The question whether human beings are capable of self-government admits only a conditional answer; they are capable insofar as they possess the intelligence and goodness and breadth of view to govern on behalf of the public good.”
    • “…to cultivate in citizens the qualities of character republican government requires…”
  • pp. 60-61: “The curriculum of the schools should reflect their purpose, said Mann, and give ample attention to civic and moral education…”
  • p. 61: Schools should seek balance and moderation:
    “As for the controversy that inevitably attends instruction in politics, morals, and religion, Mann urged that the public schools aim at a broad middle ground. In politics, they should teach “those articles in the creed of republicanism which are accepted by all,” but avoid partisan disputes….[promote] nondenominational Protestantism…excluding ‘all dogmatical theology and sectarianism.’”
  • p. 62: “Republicans were made, not born, and although it ‘may be an easy thing to make a republic . . . it is a very laborious thing to make republicans.’”
    • “Under conditions of universal suffrage, the laborious task of moral and political education would have to be extended to all.”
    • “…a republic cannot extend across an unlimited space.”
    • “Horace Mann warned of the consequences for the public good if citizens voted out of base or selfish motives…”
  • And Mann goes on to say…
    “If the ballot-box is open to wisdom and patriotism and humanity, it is equally open to ignorance and treachery, to pride and envy, to contempt for the poor or hostility towards the rich.”
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