John Havelock: Two Perceptions of America Speed Toward Decisive Clash
[John Havelock is a former Alaska attorney general. He lives in Anchorage.]
The uproar over extending government-sponsored medical services is a replay of a regular theme in American politics: the clash between two perceptions of America.
One view has it that America is or should be an interdependent community, bound by social ties, mutual duties and expectancies, an "American System." In the American System, the national government takes a leading role in shaping the community and defining its obligations.
The other view, let's call it the "Autonomous Citizen," has it that America is the last home of untrammeled individualism in which rights and duties arise only from personal contract. The Autonomous Citizen insists upon personal and sectional independence with the least national government possible, allowing free play to the personality and ambition of each individual....
Since [the age of Jackson] we have gone back and forth several times. The American System approach enjoyed revivals in the Civil War, in the turn of the Century Progressive Era, during the combined Great Depression and World War II and finally in the joint presidencies of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, each time leaving new structures of "progress," each time followed by political forces bent on rolling back the changes but not entirely succeeding....
The nation is the default village. Shifting technologies as well as demographics have changed the nation. Medical science has moved beyond tucking in, keeping warm, a shot of whiskey and hoping for the best.
The conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, looking for a middle way in the controversy over the American system of health, argues that incrementalism is the preferred approach to progress, but history is against him. The American System and the Autonomous Citizen are like tectonic plates, at rest until rising tensions fracture the social structure, awaken a country in crisis. The "Great Recession" has not yet kicked off a new age of systematic reform. But socio-economic distress continues. There will be an earthquake -- soon.
Read entire article at Anchorage Daily News
The uproar over extending government-sponsored medical services is a replay of a regular theme in American politics: the clash between two perceptions of America.
One view has it that America is or should be an interdependent community, bound by social ties, mutual duties and expectancies, an "American System." In the American System, the national government takes a leading role in shaping the community and defining its obligations.
The other view, let's call it the "Autonomous Citizen," has it that America is the last home of untrammeled individualism in which rights and duties arise only from personal contract. The Autonomous Citizen insists upon personal and sectional independence with the least national government possible, allowing free play to the personality and ambition of each individual....
Since [the age of Jackson] we have gone back and forth several times. The American System approach enjoyed revivals in the Civil War, in the turn of the Century Progressive Era, during the combined Great Depression and World War II and finally in the joint presidencies of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, each time leaving new structures of "progress," each time followed by political forces bent on rolling back the changes but not entirely succeeding....
The nation is the default village. Shifting technologies as well as demographics have changed the nation. Medical science has moved beyond tucking in, keeping warm, a shot of whiskey and hoping for the best.
The conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, looking for a middle way in the controversy over the American system of health, argues that incrementalism is the preferred approach to progress, but history is against him. The American System and the Autonomous Citizen are like tectonic plates, at rest until rising tensions fracture the social structure, awaken a country in crisis. The "Great Recession" has not yet kicked off a new age of systematic reform. But socio-economic distress continues. There will be an earthquake -- soon.