Those who disagree with us look upon our motives in negative terms. Our actions are not to be defined by what we support but by what we reject. We reject, so they say, all semblance of order; we subvert democracy and we foster treason in every vulnerable facet of society. Only the most cynical or mordantly ironic among us would ever echo these unfriendly sentiments. But for my part, and I hope for a good many others, we are in fact better defined by our positive aims.
We are not moved, as I see it, by the impulse to go against society simply out of taste or provocative inclination. Our disfavor is a byproduct, if a tragic one, of our preference for strengthening the moral character.
That this seems on utterance to be preposterous should tell you all you need to know about the mentality from which we seek refuge. Perhaps in some far off time in its history, moral character had some prestige in American life. Today it cannot rise above a platitude; something you see hung up in a suburban living room or a human resources office in cheerily bland calligraphy.
Our enemies will insist that we preach morality to you from on high. And in so preaching we seek to become your dictator and to impose our whims upon a makeshift citizenry through condemnatory rhetoric and catastrophic visions. Though I leave this all the more to the negativity of the refusers, if I preach at all I do so with regret, lacking a better medium for my message.
I find “moral leadership” an inaccurate term. Why this is so will be made clear in a moment. First I must state how uninterested the “moral leader” is in the pursuit of power and how concerned they are in preventing catastrophe. Leading by morality seems simple and lazy because it implies detachment from concrete policy. But I find it hard to render moral and practical leadership as being mutually antagonistic. In an ideal situation, pragmatism could put a check against moral overreach while moralism could hold pragmatic overcorrection accountable. Even if we fall short of the ideal, it is always crucial for those who activate their morality on a wide scale, and who seek to give the moral character renewed substance, to keep the examples that molded them at the center of their memory and to aid in guiding every decision to its rightful outcome.
Governing by morality is done with a certain degree of solemnity and humility. Those who so govern are ever mindful of the good fortune of ever having learned it at all. Much of the recent history of the United States has been influenced by an adoption of pragmatism at the expense of morality for its own sake. This was not the intention, surely, but the logical result of a series of victories common to nations that gain world prestige and which are economically dependent upon being in as many places on the planet at one time as possible. Family life in an imperial age adopts the virtues of its empire, in this case upward economic mobility, performative affluence, and the consumer as a customary role. Schools echoed this by turning education into a strata of social and professional qualifications; the number of certificates being more important than the content of the lessons. And the churches simply shrunk under the pressure of a dominant secular ethos.
I can’t say how many people were impaired by this. Most, I think, accepted it in total indifference; pragmatism being the chief inducement to intellectual laziness. Though it was comparably worse for the fraction of that population who were in effect orphaned by social amorality. They were left to their own devices as to how to derive any kind of moral sense. Some fell into an abyss and could not be pulled back out. But if they were lucky they were privy to one of the best moral educations a modern society could offer. My generation was especially gifted for being at the final stage of the underground culture before it all went online.
It was certainly unbeknownst to the teachers what they were teaching, just as it was unbeknownst to the students what they were learning. But over a course of years, given a certain commitment and not a little cognizance, something approaching a general framework within that culture had crystalized. We were not simply “going to shows” or “supporting a scene.” “Community” is an overused term, often applied to things that clearly aren’t one, like gym memberships, but I can find no more suitable term to describe how we convened. It was communal in its purest sense; assembled organically through a shared imperative for alternative thinking and acting, and in some cases living.
Indeed, there were some instances where people did seek to impart specific directives for conducting your life in an ethical manner. And fair enough, some of these are negative in character. Don’t be cruel to animals; don’t be cruel to people, in the pit or on the street or at home; don’t do drugs; and so on. But throughout all this was a broader and often overlooked encouragement: that of discernment.
I suppose it was because we were young and could not discern much of anything that this was appreciated by no one. Our early critics were apt to see us as not merely in rebellion but in rebellion by means of conformity. That we would willingly reject a standardized curricula for a looser yet more dogmatic curricula, and accredited teachers for renegade teachers was plain enough. Though it never occurred to them that we, as culture’s orphans and truants, were hardly being supervised at all. We had, by some sheer miracle, arrived at a standard of the good, and having agreed that it was possible, we sought to assemble it to its most practically viable quality. Because morality is as much a DIY endeavor as putting out a seven-inch single.
This is why “moral leadership” is conceptually flawed. We talk of gurus and teachers, to say nothing of legislators and censors, but they can only tell a given community so much. And that community can only rely on solemnity toward them for so long. If you find yourself in a paramount position, where even one person relies on your guidance, and you use it to install readymade edicts rather than to seed individual judgment, then that position is abused. And the survival of the community is put at risk because its members are so burdened by demands that no one can think through its collective needs.
If someone so positioned tells you that “America is just a word, but I use it,” it is left to you to discern its meaning. Declarative, yet cryptic; neither sentimental nor disillusioned, the line seemed apt to the era in which it was uttered and continues to be apt to our condition. It describes a concept we know, that defines us in many tangible ways, and from which it is difficult to entirely detach. But the more we habitually grasp at it, the more remote it becomes. And without a bridge to reconnect the parent society to its orphans, there may come a point where it is so remote that the word is not worth using. A vocabulary with renewed concreteness and binding force awaits its articulation. Otherwise a republic of gibberish becomes a dictatorship of silence.