We have here in Washington a constitutional law professor who would like to do away with the constitution. No, not that constitutional law professor; rather, it’s Professor Louis Michael Seidman of, sigh, Georgetown University’s law school. His New York Times op-ed from a few weeks ago asks us – as a nation – to consider “giving up” on the constitution. Why? To get things done. In order to really have a country ruled by We the People, Seidman says, we have to liberate ourselves from “the shackles of constitutional obligation”, since, well, that dusty old document penned by “a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries” just really gets in the way sometimes.

The op-ed, which is breathtakingly one-sided, tells us not to be afraid of releasing ourselves from constitutional bondage because, well, we’ve already done it! As he points out, “the two main rival interpretive methods, ‘originalism’ (divining the framers’ intent) and ‘living constitutionalism’ (reinterpreting the text in light of modern demands), cannot be reconciled…. Whichever your philosophy, many of the results — by definition — must be wrong.” So, one side or the other is ignoring the constitution. And we know this is happening because “dissenting justices regularly, publicly and vociferously assert that their colleagues have ignored the Constitution — in landmark cases from Miranda v. Arizona to Roe v. Wade to Romer v. Evans to Bush v. Gore…”

It’s not just the men in robes, either – Presidents have ignored the constitution, too:

 In his Constitution Day speech in 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt professed devotion to the document, but as a statement of aspirations rather than obligations. This reading no doubt contributed to his willingness to extend federal power beyond anything the framers imagined, and to threaten the Supreme Court when it stood in the way of his New Deal legislation.

All of this means, to Seidman, that hey, we’ll be fine if we get rid of the constitution. As we can see from FDR and Roe v. Wade, “Our sometimes flagrant disregard of the Constitution has not produced chaos or totalitarianism; on the contrary, it has helped us to grow and prosper.” There are two obvious problems here: a) how do we know that it was the flagrantly-ignoring-the-constitution and not the other side’s efforts to preserve the constitution (whichever side that is, of course – as though we can group originalists and revisionists in the same camp when it comes to their efforts to continue on using the constitution) that led to the growth and prosperity?, and b) er, it’s at least a teeny bit controversial to say that the New Deal and abortion rights equate to “growth and prosperity.”

Not done yet, though. Seidman thinks that, even though we shouldn’t bind ourselves to the whims of the dead propertied men, by golly, they did stumble on a few good ideas that we can hang onto:

Nor should we have a debate about, for instance, how long the president’s term should last or whether Congress should consist of two houses. Some matters are better left settled, even if not in exactly the way we favor. Nor, finally, should we have an all-powerful president free to do whatever he wants. Even without constitutional fealty, the president would still be checked by Congress and by the states. There is even something to be said for an elite body like the Supreme Court with the power to impose its views of political morality on the country.

Oh dear. So, some matters we should leave settled, but it’s not clear which ones or by what standard they should remain settled, once we’ve thrown out the document that established those settlements. Also, why on earth would the president be checked by the states? What precious few powers are left to the states are entirely protected by the constitution and nothing else; surely the federal government, unshackled from its hitherto constitutional obligations, will not restrain itself. (Seidman knows this, having just told us that FDR was happy to drastically increase federal power even with constitutional strictures.)

And goodness. There’s something to be said for an elite body that can “impose its views of political morality on the country”? I’m sorry – there is? And also, can we please locate that description of the Supreme Court in the constitution? (Remember, this is in the list of things Seidman would like to keep.)

But perhaps the clearest reason to keep a constitution can be found across the ocean, in Egypt’s ongoing struggle for self-rule. Samuel Tadros’ lengthy piece, “What is a Constitution, Anyway?” gives us an interesting glimpse into what kinds of fights a society can have without a crusty old document laying out the parameters. I’m happy to endure the admittedly annoying Beltline bickering over tax cuts rather than face struggles for the right to build a house of worship, which is a luxury afforded to us only because our constitution has guaranteed the latter to us for over 220 years. So for now, I’m going to cast my vote with the dead white men, or rather, with the rule of law and system of government they laid down.

Conrad Black reflects on a recent speech by George Will about the role of religion in the American social order. Black agrees with the outlines of Will’s talk but identifies some important points of disagreement. Most important, the Roman Catholic Black challenges the atheist Will about the intellectual tenability of affirming religion’s role in the social order while believing religion to be “on the objective merits” wrong. Very good stuff – worth your time.

The one place where I would side with Will againt Black is on the significance of Woodrow Wilson. For Will, Wilson represents the great historical antagonist to his hero, James Madison. Black – ever the historian – points out that much of what Will attributes to Wilson was not really present in Wilson’s own thinking. However, I think that misses Wilson’s larger significance. Wilson himself may never have endorsed the idea of man as a “perfectable” clay in the hands of social leaders; at least I am willing to take Black’s word on the matter, since he is an accomplished historian. But the great social movement within which Wilson was deeply embedded and to whose success Wilson greatly contributed did so think, and Will is right to treat Wilson’s presidency as the starting point for the great rise in power for that way of thinking.

On the other hand, Black has a point that Wilson is a religious figure. I would add that the larger social movement he represented was also extensively religious. Therefore, there is a limit to how far our conversation can get as long as we talk about “the role of religion” in the abstract. The role of Christianity has not been the same as the role that would have been played by, say, Islam; and as the contrast between the American founders and Woodrow Wilson shows, there is even much variation within the category of Christianity.

Over the Christmas break, Patrick Deneen published a bill of indictment against George Bailey – his soulless suburbs destroyed the tradition-bound community of Bedford Falls. On TPD this morning comes my brief for the defense. Yes, George Bailey destroyed Bedford Falls – but I say that’s a good thing!

Old ways of life that seem permanent are always in a state of decay. Deneen attributes permanence to Bedford Falls, but the movie shows that thinking to be false—just look at what Bedford Falls becomes without the life-giving power of George’s entrepreneurship! It’s not a choice between Bailey Park or Bedford Falls forever as it was. Bedford Falls was itself the product of a historically specific set of economic forces. It was always doomed to disappear whenever those forces changed. The only question is what would come next—and the two timelines in the movie show us the alternatives.

The defense explores at some length the overlap between the culture of marriage and family and the culture of entrepreneurship and enterprise. For example:

Marriage and entrepreneurship are generative and procreative. The family creates new life and nurtures the human person into a morally ordered being. The entrepreneur creates new ways of life that restore our moral bearings when old ways of life become—as they do in every age—cynical and dysfunctional.

A final thought. See the image at the top of this post? I put it there because I thought it shows pretty well how the entrepreneur is a moral force against the cynicism of old ways. It also shows the value of the finance system; people like to bash financiers, but they make a better life possible for us all. Most of all, it shows the moral significance of the suburbs – Deneen hates the suburbs, but as I argue in my piece, the suburbs represent the liberation of the human family.

But you know where I found that image? Democratic Underground. They’ve identified the wrong heroes and villains and that’s why they pursue the wrong policies, but they want the right things. I’m telling you, moral consensus is possible, if we can be hopeful entrepreneurs like George and seek opportunity rather than avoiding threats.

Great stuff this week from two of my favorite authors. Holman Jenkins takes a pessimistic view of the coming years:

We said it four years ago: A lost decade was coming, though not as some mechanical inevitability of the housing bust. Rather, that financial crisis put politics in charge in a way that would burden the economy’s growth for years to come.

“Lost decade” is tough stuff, but we’d be fools to avert our gaze from the possibility.

Meanwhile, Kevin Williamson has a great article on how better economic ideas can succeed if we just get over our pessimistic determinism and learn to see that we do share common moral principles with those on the other side:

Conservatives are rightly feeling a little glum after the 2012 election, but Americans are not fools, we do not want to be poor and vulnerable, and we have the resources to address even our most pressing economic concerns. In the end, good policies will win out. Consider:

Over the past 15 years a coalition of liberals and conservatives has brought in for-profit free schools in education, has sliced welfare to pay off the deficit, and has privatized large parts of the health service.

[The country’s] economy continues to grow and its pro-business coalition has remained in power since 2006.

Where? Sweden. Sweden’s reform-oriented conservatives have been able to achieve a great deal not because they are moderate — they are quite radical by Swedish standards — but in part because they took the time to really understand their rivals’ motives and, unlike unsuccessful conservatives before them, did not treat their opponents’ concerns as illegitimate.

I’m not quite that optimistic – just because the right policies do in fact align with majority values and would in fact solve our problems does not mean that they “will” win in the end. Milton Friedman predicted for years that a U.S. state would enact a universal school voucher before he died. He continued making that prediction even when he had seen the far side of 90, and was making jokes about having “outlived the actuarial tables.” He was a great economist, and like many great economists he was too optimistic that the right policy would win because it deserved to (in both the moral and political sense).

But Williamson’s optimism is a needed reminder. We need to think entrepreneurially and look for opportunities, not assume that events will continue to unfold as they have. People’s choices are not mechanistically determined by narrow calculations of self-interest or by ideological path dependence.

Williamson concludes on this very valuable note:

Republicans who are concerned about winning the loyalty of the middle class should try to understand the many legitimate reasons many middle-class voters may have had for backing Obama again, as hard as that is to understand. The despair caucus holds that everybody who voted for the Democrats in 2012 did so for a bad reason, and that the resentment-and-redistribution vote now commands a permanent majority. If I thought that were the case, I’d be learning Swedish. But I do not think that is the case.

Image xkcd

Hope you all had a merry Christmas and are getting a good start to the New Year! The Forster household travelled to Virginia to visit relatives over the break, as part of a critical new Juvenile Viral Infection Exchange Program. We were all sick with our kids’ diseases when we arrived, and by the time we left the kids’ playing together ensured we went home with new and totally different viruses. This helps cultivate biodiversity by moving the infections across state lines more efficiently. We’re doing our part!

Let’s pick up the discussion of religious institutions and modern society. Starbucks isn’t a religious institution, but it did something over the break that illustrates the basic point: it asked employees in its Washington, DC area stores to write “Come Together” on drink cups during the fiscal cliff negotiations.

One of my favorite bloggers, Mickey Kaus, was made uncomfortable by this – he calls it “corporate smarm.” His objections illustrate the problem that we’re dealing with in our discussion of religious institutions: in modern society, we are developing the expectation that “normal” institutions don’t stand for moral values or a cultural agenda. If an institution does represent such values, it is abnormal in some way – not necessarily wrong, just an exception to the rules – and one that must be kept sequestered from the normal, ordinary process of business.

Kaus asks, provocatively, “Is Starbucks a Cult?”

Did Schultz take a poll of his employees–sorry, “partners,” he calls them–before ordering pressuring asking them to join in this lobbying effort? What  if he were, say, the CEO of Chick-fil-A and he “asked” his “partners” to  write “Preserve the Family” on the outside of cups and containers?

You see how even the simplest affirmation of a moral value leads directly to fear of religion? The claim that Christians must embody their faith in institutions is profoundly disturbing to the dominant mindset, embodied here by Kaus.

What makes this especially noteworthy is that Kaus is better than most. He recognizes that businesses are not all going to conform to the model of his expectations, and wants – in principle – to have a “live and let live” model. But he expects those institutions to be special exceptions. He thinks there’s something wrong if “ordinary” institutions start taking on moral missions:

There’s a good vegan restaurant chain in L.A. that’s run by what seems  to be a cult of sorts–they offer little uplifting messages, and the dishes have  names like “I Am Awesome.” Presumably their cooks and servers knew  what they were getting into. Similarly, Schultz notes that

our[**] friends at AOL and Patch who are joining  us in activating their hyper-local network of websites to share the “Come  Together” message

which is also fine, because if you go to work for a HuffPo outfit  like AOL or Patch, that’s the sort of thing you’d expect. But Starbucks?  Maybe Schultz’s baristas came for the (admirable) health benefits, not because  they wanted to join him in some mushy Tom Brokawish corporate budget crusade.

You see the attitude about work that’s embodied here? People take a job because it pays the bills, not because they’re making the world a better place by doing their work. That’s exactly the cultural signal that’s destroying the working class by dehumanizing work as an activity.

Kaus demonstrates the seamless connection between a dehumanizing view of work and the militant secularization that threatens to destroy religious liberty. The most basic reason why businesses like Chick-Fil-A should be free to affirm marriage and Hobby Lobby should be free not to pay for employees’ contraceptives is because economic work is human action, and all human action is moral and cultural. Therefore businesses are moral and cultural institutions whether we like it or not.

Given that business is and must be culture making, we should set businesses free to be culture makers rather than try to force them to conform to an impossible model of moral and cultural neutrality. That means you can’t make the businesses’ moral/cultural identity hostage to any one employee who objects to something. A commenter here on HT illustrated the problem quite well by making the statement that things like the HHS mandate should be OK because it just means “employees who don’t believe are not forced to adhere to the same strictures” as the business owners. On this view, the only rights that matter are those of the owners (considered in some kind of highly restricted personal capacity) and those of the employees. The right of the business itself to be what it is – a moral and cultural institution – is simply not on the radar.

Granted, businesses don’t currently do a good job of stewarding their cultural role. In a follow-up post, Kaus lists some of the other recent attempts by major corporations to connect to basic values:

Move On! Before Howard Schultz’s “Come Together” stunt, I’m reminded, there  was CNBC’s “Rise Above” stunt, also  apparently an attempt to push for some sort of fiscal cliff Grand  Bargain. And CNBC’s sister network, MSNBC, has its own “Lean Forward” slogan, of course. Can you Rise Above and Lean Forward and Come Together at the  same time? I’ll look it up in the kama sutra of corporate smarm.

OK, that’s pretty funny. But to a large extent companies are bad at this because we have forced them to try to deny what they are. We’ve spent more than half a century trying to teach businesses to pretend they’re not moral and cultural. We’ve ruthlessly driven out every practice and principle that used to provide some structure and direction for this aspect of corporate life. Of course they do a lousy job of it!

We have a lot of relearning ahead of us. My guess is that Christian business leaders are going to be the key players in figuring out how to re-humanize companies.