By WAYNE E. HEIMER
Ever since George Washington coined the phrase, it has been fashionable to refer to government in the United States of America as The American Experiment. Washington’s experimental vision of government may have been deemed experimental because it began with the premise that individuals could/would act altruistically in concert when it came to governance or greater social good.
The American Experiment was also a departure from the classic monarchies of most of the world.
Still, our original governing recipe seems to have been predicated on the rather shaky assumption that altruistic individual freedom/responsibility would produce stability. The U.S. Constitution is decidedly oriented toward individuality in that it focuses primarily on what the central representative government cannot do, and on which individual rights are to be assured.The assumption of altruism as a steady virtue seems to be where things got off track.
As the colonies became a nation, this individuality expanded to the notion of sovereign states cooperating in the mutually beneficial federalist system. Compressing history at the risk of overlooking quite a lot of it, it looks like that worked reasonably well. Of course, there were relatively few of us during that early pre-industrial time, and the memories of cooperative founding were still pretty fresh.
Of course, all that came crashing down when the issue of southern state sovereignty/succession arose with human slavery as the defining issue. Hence, our Civil War, which proved the oxymoronic principle that states in the union aren’t truly sovereign. It also forcibly demonstrated that once you’re in you can’t just up and leave over a sovereignty issue. The ultimate outcome was that the central government was strengthened. States were only kinda sovereign.
The South didn’t like that at all, but it lost the war, so (pardon my French): c est la guerrece/c est la vie– such are war/life. The American South is still at least half-pissed over the outcome, and the American West is increasingly chafing under urban environmental edicts emanating from the eastern elite. Nevertheless, the USA stumbled into the 20th century with its maintenance-type stability more-or-less intact.
However, as we moved toward the 20th Century we saw the rise of disruptor/reformers/leaders.’ These influential individuals focused on the failed promises of the original, individualistic recipe given the changes that resulted from immigration, the industrial revolution, and capitalist opportunism. Thinking we could do better; they began to embrace and espouse adaptive concepts from the socialist and communist thinkers of their day.
The first notable influencer in this vein may have been President Woodrow Wilson. President Wilson considered the original Constitutional recipe for individual freedom obsolete. He advocated for a broader group identity priority extending to the world stage with the League of Nations.
Thus began what I see as the second phase of The American Experiment. This phase focused less on individualism, and more on the altruistic governmental impulse to provide (equally or equitably) for everyone. The paradigm from individual responsibility to the collective to collective responsibility to the individual through his/her group.
I rate the next giant after Wilson as President Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR adapted to the challenges of his day (the Great Depression, and subsequently World War II) by shifting farther toward group identity because the societal forces of the day. These forces seemed, because of increasing population and the shift from rural to urban residence, to render urban masses powerless to take responsibility for their own destinies during the depression. FDR’s central government stepped in. There were several Republican party administrations mixed in along the steady trend toward group-oriented administrations since Wilson.
President Lyndon B. Johnson was probably important. Nevertheless, token Republican efforts to uncouple government from the overall trend toward collective altruism did not significantly alter the trajectory toward increasing group identity.
The progression continued from standouts like Wilson, FDR, and LBJ to the next giant, Barack Obama. Then there was the frustrated first Donald Trump administration, which gave us President Joe Biden. This overall trend led the USA toward socialistic government in the second phase of the American Experiment. Perhaps this is simply the inevitable result of increasing population and the loss of individualism.
Exceptionalism is out. “Average-ism” or equity (of outcome) is in.
To achieve an equitable mean, the obvious corrective action suggested by reformers was to decrease the misery of the lowest social strata by transferring wealth from the upper classes to the lower ones. (The rich must pay their fair share in increased taxes.) This became a Democrat Party mantra, based on the presumed responsibility of the collective for the group rather than the original notion of individually assumed virtue of individual responsibility to the collective.
So, I suggest that time, circumstance, and ideology moved The American Experiment from its original focus on local/individual freedom/responsibility to one where the central government asserted its responsibility for groups which (not inconsequentially) could be manipulated as voting blocs in democratic elections. The French observer, Alexander de Tocqueville, predicted this early in American political formation.
As the altruistic group identity phase of The American Experiment moved toward its toward its present iteration, it, like the first experiment, failed to produce the utopia it had promised. It now appears to be economically unsustainable. The factors that apparently resulted in Trump’s present election may betoken the realization of a failed American Experiment in collectivism.
Hence, we may be entering another phase of The American Experiment. Are we going to run the original/control experiment again to see if it makes America great (again)?
If we admit the possibility that our prolonged experiment with Wilsonian Progressivism didn’t work, it may be that the American Experiment is logically headed toward repeating the original experiment. This is credible approach to experimental science. It amounts to re-testing an original theory.
When this is done, the experimental control becomes a return to the original concept (where the central government must cede more control back to the states and, by extension, individuals). If things get better with an original federalism, greater individual state sovereignty, and then perhaps increased individual freedom/responsibility for one’s actions, the experiment may be quite revealing in terms of human adaptive capacity.
Of course, the USA still has a huge population of folks with limited adaptive capacity due to socio-economic constraints left over from our last experiment in group management by central government. And that doesn’t even consider the plight of millions of recent immigrants. That part of the equation may or may not work out. It is possible we can’t go back. Perhaps we’ll see.
Wayne Heimer may be politely called a natural history scientist (he’s actually a Dall sheep research/management guy). This may drive his unique perspective on cause and effect.
Ahh, the author continues the long held falsehood that the Civil War primary cause was to free the sla ves… Not so true. After a year and a half the war wasn’t going so good for the north so they felt the need to slow the industrial production of the south. Blockage of the harbors and rivers was part of the effort while the second was to announce the freeing of all slaves in MOST of the slave states (not Tennessee) hoping they would stop working and hinder production in the South…
We don’t really know what we’re doing. We change laws as we see fit. First a baby is a baby, then it’s not.
Now it’s maybe a baby depending on what zipcode you live at. Tyranny is still happening in Washington. Shots haven’t been fired yet on the floor of the Senate but a president left office embarrassed by an unruly mob. We still hate immigrants. It used to be the Irish. Now it’s anyone. Things haven’t changed much if any.
“……..As the altruistic group identity phase of The American Experiment moved toward its toward its present iteration, it, like the first experiment, failed to produce the utopia it had promised. It now appears to be economically unsustainable……….”
Unfortunately, as we’ve heard with the repeated failure of communism and all attempted forms of central control under the pretense of “equity”, proponents simply claim that “it wasn’t done correctly”, and that they know how it should have been done.
This vision of economic “equity” or “equality” will never go away. It simply morphs into new forms or descriptive titles. Currently we’re hearing “Universal Basic Income”, even from POTUS candidates (Andrew Yang) as the next “solution”, and the Alaska PFD program as the only such example currently existing, and as Alaska’s budget increasingly bloating out of control, people are calling for increased taxation to support the PFD “for the poor”.
It never ends………..
The US Constitution and Bill of Rights is emphatic that the rights of the individual are above the rights of the state. The idiocy of FDR and Johnson, along with the absolute tyranny of Obama when he allowed for the bailout of the banking system, have coupled to promote for the enslavement of the individual under the guise of “providing for the greater good”. The bureaucratic tyranny has exploded to the point that elected officials have little to do with the direction of our country and the bureaucracy continues to promote it’s own growth and control. The path of such a government leads to ultimate failure, as those producing will eventually rebel against those leaching off the productive. Central government needs to be manifestly reduced and the states need to start living within their means, instead of promoting the endless printing of money. The individual should be returned to the state of freedom that advocates for self support and “pursuit of happiness”. Many laws on the books should be repealed as they stand in the way of constitutional freedoms and restrict economic and social advancement.
If anyone else noted this is very much a communist manifesto, that’s because it is.
All the faux-patriotic sugar in the world can’t make a turd like that taste good. Or maybe the Overton Window shifted so fast that people don’t remember who they are anymore?
I guess we’ll see.
You nailed it. A very poorly written piece of stockyard sludge – the author should restrict himself to sheep research and human/sheep interaction.
Here’s some historical perspective on the Washington Octopus and how it’s tentacles have grown. It’s a longer read but well worth it for those interested in such things.
‘https://newcriterion.com/article/the-washington-octopus/’
KISS principle might work here, no?
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Could it be simpler than looking at Alaska’s lobbyist-legislator team, and asking, “Shall we continue?”
Wayne, I enjoyed your article, well written too. I offer the following.
The Founding Fathers were not Altruistic.
The individual and his God given rights were enshrined in our Founders minds.
Madison was in opposition to the Bill of
Rights, because he feared that people would come to believe that those rights so stated were the sum total of their liberties.
ADT who you mention said that America was Great because America was good. He further said that Ametica would cease to be Great if it devolved into evil.
Now for the real question I wish to ask…
Sheep populations are dwindling, I’m informed that Lamb survival is only about 25%.
Furthermore I’m informed that Golden Eagle populations are increasing. Is there
a correlation between the two?
Thanks!
Robert, Based on my observations in the mountains, golden eagle populations started to increase about the time DDT was banned. I, of course, don’t know if that were the cause. Still, from the time I started spending significant time in the mountains till today, I have seen more golden eagles. Perhaps more significantly, I’ve seen (or did when I spent time in the. mountains) progressively more signs of eagle predation on lambs. I’ve seen several eagle strikes. None were in the literature when I started. Now theyr’e commonplace enough that they’re not seen as worth reporting. My observations indicate the prime users of Dall lambs may be younger eagles. Can’t say if I’ve seen something significant or not. Dall sheep across Alaska have been in a general decline for quite a while. We’d like to see lamb survival up at 40-50 percent. However, the real problem causing the decline (in my opinion) seems to be too few ewes. We used to be able to handle lamb survival being low for a few years in a row, but we had lots of ewes back then. Today? “Not so much.” My best guess is that we didn’t really notice the ewe population declines like we did the rams even though they were happening due to several factors. Still, Dall ram harvests of mature rams are pretty light statewide…have been for decades. Hunters only take about 40+% of rams turning legal each season, and the number of hunters seems to have declined faster than the sheep. I guess “on average” that means sheep hunting ‘isn’t what it used to be” but ‘on average’ the number of legal rams per hunter might be about ‘average.’ About all managers could do about it, if it were a management priority, is get very serious about predator control. Hunting did not cause the decline, and ‘weather control’ seems out of our hands.
Wayne
Wayne,
Thank you for your reply.
Perhaps locating large electricity generating wind mills in known Golden Eagle areas would help even the score for the poor baby sheep? I say this because I’ve seen remains of various birds of prey at locations in rural Alaska under and near similar ” green energy” wind farms. Just a thought…
“The assumption of altruism as a steady virtue seems to be where things got off track.” or FORCED ALTRUISM
Ayn Rand shares why altruism is not a virtue-
“Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self-esteem will answer: “No.” Altruism says: “Yes.””
“Consider the implications of that approach. If a man accepts the ethics of altruism, he suffers the following consequences (in proportion to the degree of his acceptance):
Lack of self-esteem—since his first concern in the realm of values is not how to live his life, but how to sacrifice it.
Lack of respect for others—since he regards mankind as a herd of doomed beggars crying for someone’s help.
A nightmare view of existence—since he believes that men are trapped in a “malevolent universe” where disasters are the constant and primary concern of their lives.
And, in fact, a lethargic indifference to ethics, a hopelessly cynical amorality—since his questions involve situations which he is not likely ever to encounter, which bear no relation to the actual problems of his own life and thus leave him to live without any moral principles whatever.