tac2012nov woods whosecitywhosehill

7/31/2019 TAC2012Nov Woods WhoseCityWhoseHill

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Arts&Letters

aced by the ormer Spanish and Por-tuguese colonies o Latin Americaollowing their independence, withradically dierent outcomes. WhileBritains ormer North American col-

onies, outside o Canada, were weldedinto a union that survived a titaniccivil war, Spains colonies crumbledinto a Balkanized patchwork o in-dependent countries. And whilethe United States was able to exploiteconomies o scale in a single conti-nental market to catch up with andthen surpass Britain as an industrialcolossus, or most o their history thebanana republics o Latin Americahave combined nominal political in-

dependence with a quasi-colonial rolein the world economy as commodityexporters to more advanced industrialeconomies.

A Balkanized, underdeveloped, non-industrial America, supplying ood,timber, and energy to industrial Europeand, later, to industrial Asia was alwaysa possible alternative in successive crisesin American history rom the Foundingto the Civil War, and conceivably couldbe again someday. McCraw observes:

A usion o many o Hamiltonsand Gallatins policies ound ex-pression in an economic programthat came to be called the Ameri-can Systemthe ullest programor national economic develop-ment since Hamiltons Reports o17901791. In speeches and legis-lative bills beginning in 1815 andcontinuing or two decades, Hen-ry Clay and many others sketched

out blueprints or the establish-ment and then continuation o theSecond Bank o the United States,or ederal aid to build roads andcanals, or development o theWest, and or the encouragemento manuactures through highlevels o tari protection. On eacho these goals except or the highprotective taris, the AmericanSystem mirrored the policies oboth Hamilton and Gallatin.

McCraw notes that, given a choiceamong our possible economic strat-egieslaissez-aire reliance on themarket; uncoordinated interventionin markets by city, county, state and

national governments; systematic gov-ernment guidance o economic deci-sions; and top-down, comprehensivegovernment economic managementthe U.S. has oscillated between the rstand the second: And only during pe-riods o major war (18611865, 19171918, 19411945) has it taken up eventemporary residence in category three.Category tworequent but uncoordi-nated intervention in mostly ree mar-ketshas been the American way o

public economic management.Ultimately, according to McCraw,the dream o an integrated, diversi-ed, and booming economythe aspi-ration o Hamilton, Gallatin, and manyother immigrant nationalistseven-tually came true. Because his view isretrospective, McCraw does not specu-late on what his subjects might thinkabout the present condition o theiradopted country. But i ever there werea bipartisan consensus worth preserv-

ing and promoting, it is to be ound inwhat Hamilton and Gallatin shared: anemphasis on the legitimacy o govern-ment borrowing or the right purposes,combined with an appreciation o theneed or the nation to have a soundcredit rating in order to keep borrow-ing costs low; the need or ambitiousand comprehensive systems o publicinrastructure development, withoutwhich markets are ragmented andbusinesses are taxed by ineciency;

and, above all, a vision o the nationalinterest, a vision which may come lesseasily to native-born Americans withparochial attachments and local loyal-ties than to immigrants to the UnitedStates who can view their adoptedcountry as a whole.

Michael Lind is co-founder of the New

America Foundation and author ofLand

o Promise: An Economic History o the

United States.

Whose City?Which Hill?

by T h o M a s e . W o o d s J r .

In Search of the City on a Hill:Te Making and Unmaking of an

American Myth, Richard M. Gamble,Continuum, 224 pages

One o the conventionalrights gripes againstDemocrats like BarackObama has been their al-

leged lack o aith in American ex-ceptionalism. Te United States, say

these critics, is not as other nations,which content themselves with theprosaic pursuit o bourgeois lie, butis endowed with a global, world-his-toric task rom which Americans, ithey are to be true to themselves, can-not finch.

In act, both political parties invokethe world-historic mission o the Unit-ed Statesjust recall the preposterousclaims and promises made in John F.Kennedys inaugural addressand nei-

ther would consider or a moment thepossibility o reducing Americas over-seas presence in any signicant way.

American exceptionalism is a bi-partisan phenomenon, and in modernAmerica its most potent expression isthe city on a hill, a biblical image em-ployed by John Winthrop in A Modelo Christian Charity, the lay sermonhe composed in 1630 on his way toNew England. In act, so iconic hasthat image become that Americans no

doubt assume it has been invoked andappealed to in an unbroken traditionrom its 17th-century draing downto the present day.

Historian Richard Gamble, in hisnew book, In Search of the City on aHill, nds the truth to be quite di-erent. He traces the history o thatWinthrop sermon rom its composi-tion aboard the Arbellathere is noevidence Winthrop actually deliveredthe sermon, it turns out, as opposed to


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merely writing itall the way down toJohn F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, andSarah Palin. In so doing, he ound itwas the proverbial story o the dog

that did not bark.For over two centuries aer Win-

throp composed the Model, it wasaltogether unknown to the Americanpublic. Only in 1838 was the manu-script published, and in the ensuingyears it was cited and discussed onlysparingly. And even then, the cityupon a hill imagery was almost neveremphasized as the documents rhe-torical or philosophical crescendo.For the most part, Winthrops re-

marks were described as an admirableexposition o the demands o Chris-tian charity, and that was that.

Even more surprising to the mod-

ern reader, who is oen inclined toview the rest o the sermon with im-patience as he awaits the reerence tothe city on a hill, is that as late as 1968,when historian Lee uveson wrotehis important bookRedeemer Nationabout the messianic strain in Ameri-can thought and practice, WinthropsModel o Christian Charity was notmentioned at all.

Beore proceeding rom the relativeobscurity o Winthrops Model to

its sudden elevation to iconic status,lets consider or a moment what Win-throp had in mind in 1630. Te JohnWinthrop who told his wie that God

would provide a shelter and a hidingplace or us and ours had a nite goal,namely a place o asylum or the Puri-tans and the establishment o properChristian worship and civil govern-ment as called or in the Bible. Forhim, that meant worship expunged opopish superstition, churches emanci-pated rom the authority o bishops,the Word o God as the central ocuso the church service, and a politicalsociety in which sin was to be pun-

g


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Arts&Letters

ished and Christian charity promoted.Ambitious, to be sure, but nite.

Tis new Christian community oNew England, said Winthrop, ought toimagine itsel as a city upon a hill, with

the eyes o the world upon it. Te Puri-tans had to be aithul to their covenantwith God in order not to bring shameon the cause o the Gospel. God wouldsurely bless them i they remainedaithul, but he would just as surelywithdraw those blessings and punishthem i they ailed.

Winthrop held that the mission o

the Puritans was do to service or theLord, to build up the body o Christ(i.e., the church), to preserve their

posterity rom the corruptions o theworld, and to live their lives accordingto his holy ordinances. Not exactlythe mission statement later glosses onWinthrops words would have in mind.

In the scholarly realm it was PerryMiller, the prolic 20th-century histo-rian o the Puritans, who did so muchto link Winthrops city on a hill to theidea o a messianic American con-sciousness. Miller, although not a be-liever himsel, was ascinated by and

held a great respect or the Puritans,whom he sought to rehabilitate aertheir treatment at the hands o icono-clasts like H.L. Mencken.

According to Miller, Winthrop andthe Puritans sought to establish a rev-olutionary city in New England thatwould regenerate the world. Millerconceded that the Puritans themselvesprobably did not understand the ullsignicance o what they were do-ingan admission that throws his

own interpretation into rather seriousquestion, though he believed Win-throp himsel did hold this messianic

vision. Gamble is skeptical. Winthropunderstood the mission behind the

mission, Miller claimed, although itsounded more like Miller was the oneblessed with the special gnosis.

During Reagans presidency, Teo-dore Dwight Bozeman accused Millero having invented the idea o an ex-emplary Puritan mission and notedthat the city on a hill language wasa rhetorical commonplace, not the

documents interpretivekey.

Winthrop, said Boz-

eman, had draed noinstallment upon anAmerican plan o rest-less progress but wasocused on returningchurch practice to whatthe Puritans consideredits primitive purity. An-drew Delbanco ound

Winthrop considerably more ocusedon what was being fed than on whatwas being pursued, and Winthrop bi-

ographer Francis Bremer noted thatthe city on a hill phrase was quitecommon and Winthrops messageoverall doubtless seemed airly con-

ventional to his Puritan audience.It was Ronald Reagan who seared

the image o the city on a hill (theshining city on a hill, in his rendi-tion) into the national consciousness.o be sure, John F. Kennedy had earli-er appropriated the image or his ownuse, but thanks to Reagan it became

one o the most common rerainsin the American cultural and politi-cal idiom, to the point that oreignleaders and dignitaries today makereerence to it when giving pleasantspeeches about America.

Reagan spoke o the city on a hillnearly two dozen times in presidentialspeeches. His was a city aglow withthe light o human reedom, a lightthat someday will cast its glow on ev-ery dark corner o the world and on

every age and generation to come.Gone or good was the idea o divine

judgment to be visited upon a disobe-dient city. Tis was a city that boastedonly promise, and a distinctly secular

promise at that.Gamble is at pains not simply totrace the evolution o the Model oChristian Charity and its city on ahill in American culture but to in-sist that the original city on a hill wasa biblical image, not a political sym-bol. It was not a physical place at allbut the Christian church itsel, con-ceived o as the community o believ-ers wherever they may be ound. TeChristian community, Gamble insists,

ought to be outraged at the secular ap-propriation o one o its most arrest-ing images.

Ronald Reagan, says Gamble,took hold o a metaphor and re-worked it to such a degree that a na-tion o 300 million people has lost theability to hear that metaphor in anyway other than how he used it. Itspolitical use has been potent enoughto all but eclipse its biblical meaning,even among American Christians

who might reasonably be expected toresent seeing their metaphor dressedup like Uncle Sam.

Tere is no such resentment, ocourse. Te intellectual debasemento American conservatism, combinedwith the grotesque and impious neo-conservative confation o Christi-anity and Americas mission in theworld, have decimated the kind oreligious sensibilities that would alertthe properly ormed Christian con-

science to blasphemy.Tus when Abraham Lincoln is

ound to have said that the gates ohell shall not prevail against Amer-icas ideals, this does not shock orscandalize American Christians.When George W. Bush said the lightshined in darkness and the darknessdid not overcome it, and by lightmeant American ideals, ew Ameri-can Christians batted an eye.

So we have the ollowing spectacle: a

The Christian community ought to beoutraged at the secular appropriationof one of its most arresting images.


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religious image is adapted by an earth-ly government or secular purposes,in order to urge Americans to pursuea messianic world mission that wouldhave been dismissed with contempt by

a classical conservative like EdmundBurke and which bears more in com-mon with the French Revolution andits wars o ideological expansion thanit does with anything conservativeswould have recognizedand so-calledconservatives cheer.

I anything, the reerences to thecity on a hill grow more inane overtime. Neoconservative Robert Kagancalls the New England Puritans therst imperialists and global revo-

lutionaries. For his knowledge o thePuritans he relies almost entirely onPerry Miller. David GelerntertheYale proessor who said in 2004 thatGeorge W. Bush has already earnedhis Great President badgedescribesthe Puritan city on a hill as the begin-nings o Americas sacred mission tospread liberty, equality, and democ-racy.

John Winthrop, Gelernter goeson, was a ounder o this nation, we

are his heirs, and thank God we haveinherited his humanitarian decencyalong with his radical God-earingAmericanism.

Instead o arguing over how best torame the American mission in termso the city on a hill, Gamble suggestswe ought to ask a dierent question.We ought to have a debate betweenexceptionalists o all sorts on one sideand skeptics on the other, that is, be-tween those who believe that the

United States is somehow exempt romhuman nitude, the lust or dominion,and the limits o resources and power,and those who do not.

Richard Gambles book is an impor-tant rst step toward that long-overduedebate.

Tomas E. Woods Jr. is a senior fellow of the

Ludwig von Mises Institute and author of

Rollback: Repealing Big Government Beore

the Coming Fiscal Collapse.

Honky-Talk Womanby F l o r e n c e K i n g

Whats the Matter With White People?

Why We Long for a Golden Age TatNever Was, Joan Walsh, Wiley, 278 pages

Everybody knows who Joan Walshis. o liberals shes a saint, andthey just might have a point: her

V guest spots have established heras Joan o Fallen Archness. Editor-at-Large oSalon, she regularly turns upon the Peoples Republic o MSNBC,wearing her trademark simper and ooz-ing coyness, and obsequiously recites,

Yes, Reverend Al to the honkyphobicviews o Al Sharpton. But she is likelyto appear on Fox News as well, coy-ness at the ready and wearing the samesimper but adding a urrowed brow otroubled understanding as she analyzesand sympathizes with the ears rousedby Pat Buchanans predictions o an im-minent white-minority America.

Her signature characteristics holdast in her new book. She demon-strates her allen archness by craing a

title that reminds everybody o WhatsEating Gilbert Grape? and enlists hercoyness and her simper in the serviceo book promotion to see i it really ispossible to ool some o the people allo the time, and whoor all o the peo-ple some o the time, and or how long.

I you read her title as Whats thematter with us white people? youalign yoursel with her Irish-Catholicworking-class origins (the books coveris green with a black-and-white amily

snapshot) and probably hold the sameracist attitudes and prejudices she grewup hearing. I you read it as Whatsthe matter with you white people?you identiy with the later orces thatpulled Walsh in the opposite politicaland cultural direction: going to college;becoming a career woman; working inthe media; looking down on unedu-cated people; and general, all-roundmoral superiority.

Her theme is that working-class

whites are their own worst enemy, hav-ing ollowed where Nixons Southernstrategy led and become Reagan Dem-ocrats. Treatened by the civil rightsmovement, resentul over blacks getting

something or nothing, disdained byliberal Democrats who ignored themto cater to blacks, they thought thatsimply voting Republican would makeeverything the way it used to be: silentminorities, not majorities; no hippies;a perpetual Eisenhower era o prosper-ity where their middle-class aspirationscould proceed undisturbedthe Gold-en Age o Walshs subtitle.

But working-class whites who voteor the GOP, says Walsh, are voting

or economic royalists who intend toput them back where they were be-ore FDRs New Deal rescued themrom the satanic mills and gave themsomething or nothingcollectivebargaining, the G.I. Bill, ederally in-sured mortgages, Social Security, un-employment insuranceto help themrealize their middle-class aspirations.Minorities now had the same middle-class aspirations, and the civil rightsmovement was the second New Deal.

In short, working-class whites andminorities were brothers under theskin and ought to vote accordingly.

Whenever Walsh says minor-ity she really means black, becauseblacks were the minority o her whiteworking-class New York childhood.Puerto Ricans were still a local eth-nic problem but blacks had gone na-tional, so to speak, so that Walsh, bornin 1952, had a ront-row seat or everyracial convulsion beginning with the

Supreme Courts Brown v. Board ofEducation school integration ruling in1954. Tese were the times that triedmens souls in the close-in Long Islandsuburbs where she grew up.

Its obvious that blacks are her avor-ite minority even though she knowsshes not supposed to have one. Herormative story, which she clings toeven as she calls it a airy tale, is herathers belie that he and Joan, thebrunettes in the air-haired amily,

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