Locating Our Language - Rights (Part Two)

That second point concerns the individualism of Americans.  To get an understanding I think we have to go back, as in Part One, to the formation of this country.  As noted earlier in these posts we the people have defined what we believe are essential rights or at least we have set out the broad outlines of what we believe are essential in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  Thomas Jefferson was, of course, a major force in the drafting of those documents.  Paul Johnson in his A History of the American People, at 145, says “Jefferson relied heavily on chapter five of John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government, which set out the virtues of a meritocracy [which generally defined means a governmental system whereby responsibility is based on talent and merit versus wealth, family, etc.], in which men rise by virtue, talent and industry.  Locke argued that the acquisition of wealth, even on a large scale, was neither unjust or morally wrong, provided it was fairly acquired.”  

By the way, here’s a statement from John Locke to ponder in his Two Treatises of Government and a Letter Concerning Toleration, at 101, “... we must consider what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of nature; without asking leave or depending on the will of any other man.”

Jefferson thought it critical to tie together this individualism and freedom to a central arbitrating authority in order to be ultimately workable.  Johnson observes, at 146, “Jefferson’s achievement, in his tract, was to graft onto Locke’s meritocratic structure two themes which became the dominant leitmotifs [leitmotif means dominant or recurring theme] of the revolutionary struggle.  The first was primacy of individual rights...  Equally important was the placing of those rights within the context of Jefferson’s deep and in a sense more fundamental commitment to popular sovereignty.”

What I am getting from this little snapshot is that America was founded by a group of rugged individuals, who were deeply concerned about free exercise of rights.  While we have defined rights, rather broadly, we have little in the way of constraints placed on us in the determination of what rights and to what extent we may freely exercise whatever rights we elect to claim.  While that seems like a broad sweeping statement, in light of the ideals, as illustrated by Jefferson, I suspect we will bristle pretty fiercely if we feel we have a right to act in such and such a way and someone comes down on our exercise of that right - presuming that exercise is within the bounds of nature (Locke) or within the limits placed on us by that popular sovereignty (Jefferson).

That indeed seems to be the current running through our nation today as well. I will admit I was a child of the 60s and 70s (it was a little freaky when my daughter asked me for help when she was studying the Vietnam War in her American history class and she asked me who were people named Nixon, Kissinger, Ho Chi Minh).  But what I recall a lot about those days were we were all in rebellion from the 50s of our parents and how uptight and so conformist they, in their generation, seemed. I remember going to church dressed up in my sweater vest, clip on tie, with my very short hair neatly combed.  But what we felt was of more importance was finding out who we were, being able to express ourselves as individuals  and admiring, at times somewhat outrageous, expressions in art, literature, the movies, and such things.  The amount of dope flowing everywhere (I attended Southern Illinois University at Carbondale - the stop between Mexico to Chicago and points east some said), free love, and such activities were pretty amazing.  But what was going on wasn’t simply breaking away from our parents and rules and such things, in my humble opinion, but a belief that the conformity of the prior generations had failed to make America a better place - culturally and politically (after all it was those generations that had both World Wars, the atomic bomb and of course for us that horror in Vietnam).

In any event, maybe my generation didn’t see all that clearly either.  Unchecked individualism has its own problems and maybe finding identity in community isn’t all that bad in and of itself.  Maybe its more a question of the community ethos that should have been examined.  Then again, maybe that wouldn’t have led to any better answers either.  What we do have, it seems, is a system based on individualism and freedom, with a check on that freedom by a central authority, that itself is established by popular consent, but with an underlying current of economic concerns characterized by contractual arrangements.

Hayakawa says it well, in his Language in Thought and Action, at 68, “society is a vast network of mutual agreements...  This complicated network of agreements into which almost every detail of our lives is woven and upon which most of our expectations are based, consist essentially of statements about future events which we are supposed, with our own efforts, to bring about. With such agreements and a will on the part of the vast majority of people to live by them, behavior begins to fall into relatively predictable patterns, cooperation becomes possible, peace and freedom are established.”