Texts:Rom-E-68b-E-Pur-8

Purposes
Eight Reflective Essays

8—The Ides of March, 1969

8:¶1

We think our civilization near its meridian, but we are yet only at the cock-crowing and the morning star. In our barbarous society the influence of character is only in its infancy.

8:¶2

I write in the sullen realization that we have again chosen as our president a man of no character. For another four years we seem stuck in controversial matters with government by indecision. The formula has become familiar: when faced with a confrontation, opt for neither this nor that, but for a cosmetic blend of both, carefully mixed to placate the powerful interests and to scotch the critics. This formula elevates weakness into the operative principle of government; it belies the real lack of authority in our so-called permissive society: authority has evaporated as men of high office have followed Machiavelli and confused the tricks of getting and keeping power with the duties of having and using power. Make no mistake: the tricks work by and large, at least so long as the moral capital of the community has not been completely consumed. Until then, there is strength in weakness; through perpetual indecision, small men can keep atop tremendous forces, and by systematic eclecticism, uninspired persons can win the consent of most of the nation.

8:¶3

Nevertheless, these practices suggest to a growing remnant that the nation cannot be governed. Public office is not a mere patriotic preferment, an honor that the people condescend to bestow on certain figures, as a schoolmarm gives out gold stars to reward docile comportment. No: public office is the receipt of the delegated authority to allocate and expend vast common resources; and the reception of this authority is incompatible with the principle of weakness, for once any allocation and expenditure has been made, it is final and irrevocable. The one-trillion five-hundred-billion dollars spent since the end of World War II for national defense have been consumed; other real opportunities and stirring possibilities have been passed by forever; and the money and intellect expended for arms cannot now be resurrected and devoted to upgrading our schools and universities or to conserving our countryside and humanizing our cities. Thus, in public affairs, time is implacable; and in history, indecision is decisive: it is—decidedly—a costly, wasteful drift.

8:¶4

Many wonder whether the men who receive the authority of public office can actually use it to direct the allocation and expenditure of resources. A nearly fixed, substantial proportion of our gross national product seems to be allocated automatically to arms production. Other concerns inevitably take the hindmost, for the military and their epigones in business, space, diplomacy, and government wield sufficient money and influence to prevent any other public function from receiving a priority higher than national defense. Many find it incredible that at this juncture sane governors could consider the expenditure of six to seven billion dollars on a doubtfully effective device to protect a few intercontinental missiles to be preferable to an equivalent expenditure to lessen racial tension, environmental pollution, or overpopulation. No matter how slick a form the decision may be given, its substance engenders disbelief and incredulity in many.

8:¶5

Here is the reality behind that unfortunate phrase, the credibility gap. It is nothing so simple and remediable as ineffective public information policies or transparent efforts to manipulate opinion on important matters. The suspension of all belief occurs in those who have thought seriously about over-all national priorities, for they find that, in view of the problems and possibilities of the era, the allocation and expenditure of resources effected under the principle of weakness is irrational. The formula of neither this nor that councils politicians against facing the hard choices between incompatible possibilities in a manly manner. A credible decision on the ABM would have involved a comparison of the probable returns to the nation from spending six to seven billion dollars over the next four years on defensive missiles with the potential national benefits from equal investments in education, housing, health, transportation, foreign aid, food production, birth control, or conservation. Instead, like the Senate Armed Services Committee, Nixon docilely permitted the Pentagon to define his alternatives; and without looking at other national concerns, he chose the politically most palatable of the warriors' offerings. No matter how expedient, such procedures are irrational; and as long as high office holders use such procedures to escape the responsibility for making hard choices between competing possibilities, rational men will not hold credible the policies of their irrational governors.

8:¶6

Hence, among the costs of costly non-decisions such as that on the ABM, we should reckon the fact that many are learning from the repetition of such absurdities to look on national government with complete cynicism and derision. The growing disgust includes, but is not characterized by, the voiced obscenities of the radical left; the disgust is more profound than surface show and the disengagement is more far reaching than paraded protest. For each vocal recantation, there are numerous silent abjurations in which sensitive, hard working men turn away from national affairs, withholding their talents, respect, and consent while they fulfill the outward forms. That this silent disengagement is becoming practically significant was shown in the difficulty Nixon had in recruiting his cabinet. More and more people believe the national government is functioning irrationally, and they consequently seek to avoid it as they would, when walking on a city street, pass by a drunken panhandler with a stiff stare.

8:¶7

This situation is not healthy, but like any disease, it will not be cured merely with anguished regrets. As long as indecision remains the stock decision of government, disgusted disenchantment will become more and more common. Honest error can always be constructively opposed; disengagement does not develop because people are left cold by erroneous decisions, but by the sense that no real decisions are being made, that perhaps with the muscle-bound condition of the nation significant decisions cannot be made. If the powers that be can manage to become decisive, to begin again to exercise leadership towards some definite, demanding, distant goal without thereby committing political suicide, they may forestall the spreading disengagement. But that seems unlikely; the signs suggest that Nixon's imagination is not commensurate with the tasks of his office and that his character is no more in keeping with his duties than was that of his predecessor.

8:¶8

If this inadequacy is real, then the critics of public affairs have before them a difficult, important choice to make: namely, whether nevertheless to seek primarily to enlighten the performance of the powers that be, or whether to try to lead the disenchanted towards some constructive alternative. To me, the latter course now seems the most important, promising, and responsible. Let those who find that America is no longer a dream set out to create a new one, and in doing so, let us draw inspiration from an observation that Emerson made when he reflected on "Politics":

8:¶9

We think our civilization near its meridian, but we are yet only at the cock-crowing and the morning star. In our barbarous society the influence of character is only in its infancy.

Robert Oliver
Teachers College Record (vol. 70, no. 8, May 1969)