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By Daniel B. Gallagher.
The 250th birthday of the United States is a good time to remember that 1776 was the year of a new nation, not a new government. It would take another eleven years for the Founders to formulate what the government would look like, and two more to elect the first president.
This sequence of events reminds us that it is not a government that makes a nation, but a nation that makes a government. Even peoples who lack a sovereign territory, such as the Kurds or Basques, conceptualize themselves in some way as a nation before devising some sort of governing apparatus. You need something to govern before you can figure out how to govern it. The Vichy regime in France is an example of what can happen if one attempts to establish a government with no true nation behind it.
Having been around long enough to celebrate both, I can't help but feel concern about the disquietude surrounding this year's Semiquincentennial celebration in comparison with the Bicentennial fifty years ago. Last summer, a White House task force appointed to plan and to implement the celebrations was already butting heads with a congressional commission established for the same purpose.
John Dichtl, president of the American Association for State and Local History, has a point when, referring to plans to host an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) at the White House, asks, "What does a (UFC) fight have to do with America's greatness?" Writing in The Hill, Myra Adams confesses that she feels "less pride" in this Semiquincentennial year, lamenting that "dangerous trends threaten what our Founding Fathers envisioned."
Back in 1976, virtually no one hesitated to wave a flag, march in a parade, and join in singing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." And all this not even two years after an American President voluntarily stepped aside for the first time. Fifty years later, students no longer recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the elementary school I attended.
That said – and especially in light of recent chaos in Minneapolis – I do understand how people could lack enthusiasm for the event if they forget we are celebrating the founding of a nation and not a government. The former is much more worthy of celebration if we take it as the primary locus of the shared values and ideals inspiring a diverse people to form a Union.
Chief among those is obviously freedom, including the freedom to vote Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, or even Communist or Socialist, if you like. If you want to know what a one-party celebration looks like, look no further than the Tian'anmen and Kim II Sung Squares.
The need to revisit the distinction between a nation and a government became clearer to me when, while interviewing political theorist Patrick Deneen, Bishop Robert Barron asserted that, according to the classical view, the purpose of "government" is to cultivate virtue in its citizens. He claimed to have learned this from philosopher Robert Sokolowski at the Catholic University of America.
Msgr. Sokolowski was my professor too, and I don't remember him saying this. I do remember him saying that, according to the classical view, the purpose of the polis was to make citizens virtuous and good. That's not to say government has no role, but the polis is a richer and more expansive concept than "government," even though the extent to which the ancient Greek polis resembles the modern state is debatable.
In any case, a polis, according to Aristotle, is a natural community where individuals come together to pursue the good life. The politeia is the way a polis is organized, including – but not limited to – its system of government. Politeia also encompasses the values and practices that make a polis possible.
Though much more can be said about the distinction, it is enough to draw attention to the myopic view of "politics" we have today. If we limit politics to what happens inside the D.C. beltway, we easily fall into the trap of thinking that it is primaril...
The 250th birthday of the United States is a good time to remember that 1776 was the year of a new nation, not a new government. It would take another eleven years for the Founders to formulate what the government would look like, and two more to elect the first president.
This sequence of events reminds us that it is not a government that makes a nation, but a nation that makes a government. Even peoples who lack a sovereign territory, such as the Kurds or Basques, conceptualize themselves in some way as a nation before devising some sort of governing apparatus. You need something to govern before you can figure out how to govern it. The Vichy regime in France is an example of what can happen if one attempts to establish a government with no true nation behind it.
Having been around long enough to celebrate both, I can't help but feel concern about the disquietude surrounding this year's Semiquincentennial celebration in comparison with the Bicentennial fifty years ago. Last summer, a White House task force appointed to plan and to implement the celebrations was already butting heads with a congressional commission established for the same purpose.
John Dichtl, president of the American Association for State and Local History, has a point when, referring to plans to host an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) at the White House, asks, "What does a (UFC) fight have to do with America's greatness?" Writing in The Hill, Myra Adams confesses that she feels "less pride" in this Semiquincentennial year, lamenting that "dangerous trends threaten what our Founding Fathers envisioned."
Back in 1976, virtually no one hesitated to wave a flag, march in a parade, and join in singing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." And all this not even two years after an American President voluntarily stepped aside for the first time. Fifty years later, students no longer recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the elementary school I attended.
That said – and especially in light of recent chaos in Minneapolis – I do understand how people could lack enthusiasm for the event if they forget we are celebrating the founding of a nation and not a government. The former is much more worthy of celebration if we take it as the primary locus of the shared values and ideals inspiring a diverse people to form a Union.
Chief among those is obviously freedom, including the freedom to vote Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, or even Communist or Socialist, if you like. If you want to know what a one-party celebration looks like, look no further than the Tian'anmen and Kim II Sung Squares.
The need to revisit the distinction between a nation and a government became clearer to me when, while interviewing political theorist Patrick Deneen, Bishop Robert Barron asserted that, according to the classical view, the purpose of "government" is to cultivate virtue in its citizens. He claimed to have learned this from philosopher Robert Sokolowski at the Catholic University of America.
Msgr. Sokolowski was my professor too, and I don't remember him saying this. I do remember him saying that, according to the classical view, the purpose of the polis was to make citizens virtuous and good. That's not to say government has no role, but the polis is a richer and more expansive concept than "government," even though the extent to which the ancient Greek polis resembles the modern state is debatable.
In any case, a polis, according to Aristotle, is a natural community where individuals come together to pursue the good life. The politeia is the way a polis is organized, including – but not limited to – its system of government. Politeia also encompasses the values and practices that make a polis possible.
Though much more can be said about the distinction, it is enough to draw attention to the myopic view of "politics" we have today. If we limit politics to what happens inside the D.C. beltway, we easily fall into the trap of thinking that it is primaril...