Saturday, June 5, 2010

Universalism in Two Essays

Universalism, It Isn't For Everyone

It is necessary to identify that form of Universalism that opposes the particular rights of people to land, culture, identity, patrimony and opposes any particular religion or culture. This Universalism has an alluring but toxic simplicity. It speaks to a desire for justice and equality by removing from the debate all the causes that make justice and equality difficult to achieve. Universalism has origins in the of the philosophies emerging in the Enlightenment period but by no means is inseparable from it. This also coincides with the beginning of the the era of Western Imperialism (and Imperial Commercialism) which Universalism is strongly tied to. In practice Universalism has been anything but universal.

Universalism and the Other

The idea that a nebulous list of individual "rights" are universal and everything else is up for grabs denies most people their rights to a specific identity, patrimony, legacy, culture and perspective. Note that I say some people. This is because that behind the notion of Universalism is its "Western" provenance and implicit in that is superiority of the Western world view.

Rather than being inclusive, as Universalism ostensibly is, it instead defines the Other, those that do not adhere to an iteration of the Western world view as the only legitimate and modern world perspective. Often this Universalism will include hazily defined ideas such as Democracy, Capitalism, secularism and commercialism. Implied is acceptance of hegemonic or oligarchic rule, hostility to “radical” democracy, economic egalitarianism or even “unorthodox” market oriented economies; there is also opposition toward the patrimonial, the culturally specific, the religious and the anti-commercialism.

Another feature of Universalism vs the Other is the notion of traditionalism vs “modernism” with Universalism somehow representing all that is contemporary and the Other being somehow consigned to a time-warp. The individual is thus stripped of his social and historical context replaced by a new context, a replacement of sorts, supplied largely by com? mercialism.

Universalism and Aggression

With the leveling of rights, are actions. Universalism is distinctly aggressive: others must be made to accept Universalism, it is good for them and this prescriptive should and must be implemented by coercion if necessary. The denial of a person's particular rights extends into the world of material rights.

It is unsurprising then that colonialism leaned heavily upon Universalism as a justifying philosophy. The people of China or India for instance did not have a specific set of rights to their country, their land, their economy, government or institutions. How could they? Such rights could not exist. And the various groups, with their familial, ethnic, national or tribal affiliations with certain rights and prerogatives in a certain space could hold no validity under Universalism.

Inequality and Injustice

There is something of the scoundrel's argument in Universalism, i.e., "what is mine is mine and what is yours is mine". We all know the man who gives away all of his possessions in to the end of achieving equality has only accomplished making himself the lesser among the unequal. Such dispossession does not aid equality.

It is reasonable that there can be a "fair" re-allotment but that immediately calls to question what right does anyone have to anything (or what are they entitled to) and what right do they have to dispose of what they possess. Is something yours by right of birth, right of conquest, right familial association, right of investment, right of delegation? And what rightfully belongs to a particular individual or group? An involved business to be sure. When we deliberate on those rights we see there is not much Universal in them in theory or practice-- consider the complexities of property and international law-- but that there are principles to be applied the situational. (Many have tried to apply these wider principles in reforming Universalism, particularly in the post World War era with varying degrees of acceptance.)

Rights and Legacy

Rights are particular to people due to various standings, many of which are non-transferable. For example, if someone inherits something as the child of an individual, they may later give their inheritance but they cannot share their original status as inheritor. What someone inherits as an individual or a class of people, or all that someone might otherwise rightfully possess should not be subject to forced dispossession, whether that be identity, patrimony, culture, institutions or material possessions. It may be in practical and moral terms a good idea to help others (as individuals and groups) gain these things. And if someone or group has come upon their legacy or possessions unjustly it is at the very least incumbent upon them to help others who suffer from the injustice. That is a far cry from the leveling of rights in Universalism.

In asserting its view, Universalism reduces everything to the individual, disregarding all that came before, that exists with and that will come after. It does not acknowledge the nature of human cooperation and competition or group and organization advantages. It denies culture, psychology, human biology, history and religion, and thus ultimately denies humanity part of its very self.

Universalism and Inclusion

Allowing people to have "what is theirs" is a precondition to allowing people to share the wider "what is ours". Diversity and multiculturalism have become part of the wall papering covering Universalism's failure to address equitable inclusion. Universalism has not achieved proportionality, enfranchisement and equality of opportunity nor can it.

Universalism relies upon moral and cultural adherence more than legal and structural imposition. Its adherents offer non-adherents crucial advantages; and the adherents to Universalism make themselves less viable. The universalists surrender their identity and thus cannot achieve any cooperative advantage. Patrimony, legacy and culture are denied so nothing actually “belongs” to the universalist. Crucially, Universalism offers advantage then only when those imposing or promoting it do not actually abide by it.  (Here is an irony: Many in Western quarters that once spread Universalism as Ghengis Khan is said to have launched diseased cadavers into enemy encampments have now contracted a particularly virulent and self destructive form.)

Universalism and Justice

We need not claim absolute equality in propensities, abilities and opportunities to achieve justice. Indeed, if we expect that some will have a propensity for injustice or some have greater abilities or opportunities we will structure society to be “on guard” against injustice, oppression and the misuse or harmful use of abilities while providing justice, opportunity and fair enfranchisement whether that be to individuals or communities.

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American Notes on Universalism

America subsumed the Black, Native American and frontier Mexican. Challenged with foreign and unfamiliar surroundings, resources and culture, the early White settlers adopted food, clothing and shodding materials, dyes, agricultural, storage and building techniques, words and forms of entertainment and cultural expression. Nevertheless these things became "American" and thus synonymous in the collective imagination as White Protestant American.

This subsumption was achieved informally by myth making and blood (interracial relationships) and formally by (sometimes extremely) coercive penalties, economic and cultural restrictions as well as education and indoctrination. For centuries (300 years) outside of the loftiest of intellectual circles there was little pretense in American life about practical Universalism . And for three hundred years America formed a national culture that, with exceptions, others could assimilate to.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and virtually all the founding fathers had a view distinctly opposed to Universalism.  The then prevalent bias toward English, Scottish or "Germanic" people among the founding fathers and American electorate has become a less comfortable area for discussion in the post WWII era for obvious reasons.

Jefferson made his vision of absorption of Blacks and Native Americans under waves of Germanic people clear, "You will unite yourselves with us and we shall all be Americans. You will mix with us by marriage. Your blood will run in our veins and will spread with us over this great Island."  America's constitutional faith was a Northern European thing from which Indians and Negroes, whether slave or free, were severely limited.

Up until Jim Crowism, Blacks and Indians were denied the right to have their own churches and to build institutions. A key understanding of the dominant group was that Universalism hides disproportionate influence, a lack of representation and a denial of healthy identity.  It was not surprising then that Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington  and W.E.B. Du Bois all argued for the building of Black institutions and for Du Bois, the more radical position of the fair representation in the public arena and communal institutions as well. None of these people wanted to deny their own or others of their legacy, patrimony, identity or culture. And these were not segregationists or separatist- all were of mixed race and active in the open public sphere.  For these men the shortcomings, and ineffectiveness in their Constitutional government and institutional arrangements and intrinsically in these, the failings of Universalism were readily apparent.

In time the actual intentions, strengths and flaws of the Constitution has been debated, misunderstood and finally ignored by most Americans. But its most avid acolytes were -- and still today are -- White Protestants whose fanatical devotion to achieving liberty, equality, and fraternity would take hypocritical and incoherent turns that caused them to divest themselves and the country of these these very conditions.  

Several decades following the victory of Northeastern states in the Civil War, Universalism was growing as a central value in core ethnie (particularly among White Protestants in the Northeast), while partially assimilated immigrant groups, identities still intact, were pouring into the important cities of that region.  Ethnic machines and economics made a more deterministic model than ever, and the more tribal and ethnocentric, the more successful any group was. In this manner the possibilities of economic expansion also grew apace. The core ethnie (White Protestants) began to abandon much of the cities for suburbs and exurbs and those of color were relegated by law, policy and practice into ghettos and systematic oppression (red lining, urban renewal, housing and job discrimination, every type of governmental program and contract awarding discrimination imaginable). This situation continued for the better part of a century, even after immigration had waned.

The post WWII boom led to expansion of social spending that created American suburbia as we know it. Guaranteed student, automobile and home loans, spending for suburban infrastructure, schools, hospitals, universities, etc. changed the face of the country, with the urban Northeast (as well as the urban Midwest and West) getting the largest share of the spending. These programs through explicit declaration and through structure denied people of color the benefit. The efforts had some success in giving a deeper American identity to late arriving White Americans (non “WASPs”), but it was largely a refashioned identity, an amalgam of consumerism, solipsism, entitlement (thanks partially to successful union efforts and post WWII markets for American manufacturing), state and corporate dependence, faith in authority, intellectual and moral vapidity and varying degrees of narrow political tribalism particularly in local and domestic political affairs. One needs only to contrast this with the formerly dominant “American Protestant ethic” (hard work and austerity, deep dislike and distrust of authority, demands for decentralized and community based press or media, proportional representation, decentralized community based governing, strong belief in privacy, opposition to foreign entanglements large standing armies or military spending, community based and localized economies, standing based on social responsibility.)  The governing system, social system and American identity would be forever changed by the "boom", and not necessarily for the better.

In the latter part of this era, non-whites, having long buried their identity and culture into American culture (Black "militants" and intellectuals used the expression “Black Anglo Saxon Protestantism”), out of frustration and influences from post-colonial nationalism began to look for their non “WASP of color” identity as a means to empowerment and social advancement. This resulted in sometimes flailing if valiant efforts at achieving an identity, legacy and context in the denuding wash of Universalism. Easily lost was the fact that American culture was as much their own as it was the culture of White Protestants. While the 400 year plus investment to American society was seldom a voluntary one for Blacks, Native Americans, and frontier Hispanics, it was not easily replaced. These ""minority" groups would also have trouble shifting their attitudes, for years based on traditional American identity and values which they had been force fed to a modern, post White Protestant led (post-industrial, post traditional) society.

For White Protestants, or so-called WASPS, what was loss in the buffeting waters of Universalism was not only identity, legacy and context (witness the upheavals of the 1960’s and 70’s and their legacy). The process of White ethnic (non WASP) expansion enfranchisement in key geographic areas, and the rejection of Universalism and to some extent a shared American identity by people of color all combined to deliver once unthinkable WASP disenfranchisement. And where there is disenfranchisement of such a large group, there is also unhealthy manifestations of resentment (irrational hatred, vicious and fantastical racialism, senseless violence) and those who are even weaker are where resentment is focused.  Having such a sizable portion of the population turning to such "kiss up, kick down" behavior jeopardizes an even wider range of the American population.


What eventually is lost is a core ethnie (culturally) of America as well as the political and social influence for largest groups of Americans.  There is no rectifying and moving forward. Universalism has rendered all groups that subscribe to it or have who have been victimized in the past by it, into frustration (often manifested in unhealthy ways) and ultimately decadence.

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